The Wealth Redistribution Poster

If you just stand around in Germany....you tend to notice little things that most Germans never notice.

So in Mainz, as part of the Unity-Tag preparation....lot of signs and posters going up.

This poster....rather big in size (there's a dozen around the mid-section of town)....has an interesting thought.

There's a ten-line piece to bring a tear to your eye....that the EU is investing it's funds into Rheinland-Pfalz (the state over Mainz).  In the budget between 2014 and 2020....595 million will flow into the state.

Mighty fine.....mighty fine.

Well....you see, the German government puts in around 30-billion Euro a year (using 2013 statistics).  Their return?  Roughly Fifteen to seventeen billion Euro.

So the Mainz folks send in their taxes....the German bundle that money up and send it onto the EU....then some EU folks have to get paid for their services....then some poor EU members get some wealth redistribution payment, and then some money gets shifted back to Mainz, thus making the EU folks look really nice but it was Rhienland Pfalz money to start with.

If you sat and figured out the angle to this wealth redistribution game....it'd make you pretty upset looking at the poster.

But, luckily....there's a lot of beer to be served, and I doubt if more than 2-percent of the crowd eyeball this poster and read the whole ten lines.....with only a hundred Mainz folks shaking their heads over the whole bragging situation laid out.

You just have to wonder....if Germany had just kept that 30-odd billion Euro....how they would have spent the whole thing.

Oh, in case you were wondering....when the Brits leave via BREXIT.....yeah, the Germans will have to take up some slack and probably contribute another three or four billion on top of that previous amount. But don't worry....they will get back 55-percent of that extra money. 

Unity Tag (Unification Day)

Next Tuesday is a German national holiday....often referred to as Unity Tag.  The celebration?  It's unification day between East and West Germany.

What do most Germans do?  There are generally two crowds.  One crowd is mostly journalists, politicians, and intellectuals who hype up the unification deal.  Speeches are given, and beer served.  The other crowd is mostly regular people who grill, mow their lawn, and do some repair work around the house.  In simple terms, it's celebrated that much.

If you stood up in a German pub and asked about the whole thing....you get three observations by regular Germans.

1.  This whole unification thing turned into a huge requirement for tax revenue rather quickly, and has never ended. 

2.  Most people under the age of thirty....don't remember much of anything prior to 1990 and the division.

3.  The only people celebrating tend to be political or intellectual types.  In the Mainz case....they will celebrate just about anything....with a beer, or two, or three.  If you were celebrating the arrival of the Romans in Mainz two-thousand years ago....that'd be fine with the locals as long as beer flowed.

So, next Tuesday.....when you meet up with your German associate....wish them a happy unity-day and offer up a beer. 

The German Cabinet Fight?

There is no way to know if this is 'true' or not....but Focus put up an article this morning that suggests that the Green Parry of Germany, and the FDP folks....have met privately (long before the election) and have a draft idea of the ministry positions that they want to occupy. 

FDP: Finance Ministry, Minister of Technology and Digital Matters, and the Justice Ministry.

Greens: Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Consumer Protection, and the Foreign Ministry.

On the beefy position left for the CDU and CSU?  That basically leave the Interior Ministry and the Defense Minister position.....after that....the rest are minor jobs.  The CSU is expected to ask for the Interior Ministry....so that means there's not much to carve out for the dozen high performers of the CDU. 

A negative?  For the Merkel team, if this comes to pass....it'll be a bitter pill on the victory.  My guess is that they might fight for the Justice Ministry. 

"Ticketstudenten"

It's an unusual term which comes up.  If you mentioned Ticketstudenten to mostly working-class Germans in a pub....there might two or three who will grin and give the simple definition of the word.

So, here in Germany....we have various tariffs arranged for railway/bus riders.  There's the old-guy/retiree status.  There's the under-age-6 group (typically always free).  Then you come to the student class or tariff.

Students are special....they get a highly discounted railway ticket.  Germans will argue over the term 'dirt-cheap' but it probably applies in this case.

In the last year, they've even gone to a terrific rate....one Euro per day.  For 365 Euro a year, as a student....you can travel in your region via buses and railway.

So naturally, you'd eventually get around and discuss the idea of 'pretending' to be a student and get the discount rate.  Well.....yeah....that's not legal or ethical, depending on how you work this out.

Most railway organizations want to see a student admission form.  So you could walk in and register for classes....but never attend a single class.  Then you'd get the highly discounted railway tickets for your ride in and back each day.  In essence, a fake student but getting a terrific discount on railway travel.

This comes up because there is a AfD member, who has risen high up in the organization....who refers to himself as a graduate of such-and-such school.  The issue is that the School hasn't ever issued any certificate or diploma.  The accusation by some political folks is that he's a Ticketstudenten and very unethical.  Odds of an investigation?  Hard to say.  In most political parties, there would be a meeting, and a couple of folks assigned the job to review the facts, then they'd toss the guy out.  With the AfD?  It's hard to say.

If you think about this long enough....the problem is a socialist-like gift which isn't really monitored or able to be verified in any real fashion.  But no one really wants to resolve or fix this either.

The Exit Door with Petry

Roughly twelve hours after the election ended from the weekend....AfD (the anti-immigrant party) had this odd development.  Their former boss...Frauke Petry....announced that she was leaving the party.

The news media?  Fairly hyped up.  You see....she didn't say she was giving up her seat in the Bundestag....set for four years by her victory in her district....but she was going to stay on with the job and represent the district as an independent person.

Last night? Petry appeared on the Sandra Maischberger public forum show on ARD (Channel One from the public TV structure).  N-TV news told most of this story.

Petry's answers centered on content....not a political slant.  What does this mean?

Across Germany, if you look at how the political party system has developed....there's thirty-odd platforms and some hyped-up sense over future laws which might or might not be passed. It's a brand name that the party is simply using to sell their 'product'.

Petry in someway is suggesting that it's about time to go and talk about individual districts and all the people in that district.....not just from the left, right or center.

Petry went out and bought the web domain...."dieblauen.de" a few months ago.  No one really noticed that but it suggests that she had some belief in the AfD falling apart, and that she has a new political party idea.  THE BLUE Party.

What makes up the Die Blauen?  Unknown.  On paper, they don't exist.

If you asked me to take a guess....there are some people who've studied the Macron phenomenon in France and think that you can guild the same apparatus in Germany.  Maybe Petry is thinking along these lines.

If you asked most working-class Germans (not the intellectuals or journalists)...most would say that the whole political party apparatus is functioning like a soap opera and solutions to problems are no longer possible, meaning you dream up some fancy solution which seems to solve X-problem but typically creates Y-problem in the process.

I won't say Petry is right on this decision but there's some disgruntled Germans out there who just aren't that happy.

The Next EU Migrant Plan

If you look across the German news this morning, there are bits and pieces of the EU talk from yesterday....of a new migration plan that the EU has dreamed up.

The EU wants a clean and ethical pathway into the EU....to stop all this smuggler-boat business into Italian waters. 

The idea presented is this: you have a paperwork situation where 50,000 Africans can come through....demonstrate their background, skills, IDs, and degrees....and get a 'resettlement process'.

Now, this would mean that someone in the EU would be a clearing house for the likely two-million applicants sending in their paperwork, and then there would be a outward flow team who would assign you to a EU member (27 states soon after the Brits leave).  So you wouldn't exactly be able to pick and choose any country.  You'd be limited.  Acceptance of being 'assigned'?  I doubt seriously that the 50,000 that you'd give entry paperwork for....would be willing to consider the lesser economic states like Greece, Portugal, or Czech.  They'd also sit and ponder over unemployment rates and ask how stupid it'd be to put you into country with 11-percent unemployment.

The EU?  Never one single mention of the unemployment rate issue throughout Europe.

From the 2-million likely applicants, with 1.95 million refused?  Will they just accept that or continue on with their smuggler route expedition?  If I were a betting person....I would be on 100,000 people attempting the smuggler route each year out of North Africa. 

But we come to this odd part of the EU deal.  Basically, they are saying that they want the best and brightest....the more educated....the people with crafts and skills.

So if you were a country like Nigeria or Ivory Coast....spending millions each year on a college or job-training system, and watched thousands apply and leave over a decade long into Europe, and you getting NO return on the education you provided....would you continue to support the education system you created?

I have my doubts.

You'd wake up in a decade with all these that you wasted money on, gone forever, and not part of your economic system or future. 

In terms of long-term support, I think all of the educational systems in Africa would suffer a major blow in ten to twenty years. 

This is another case of a bunch intellectual 'geeks' sitting around in some room, and inventing some paper-dragon-like exercise to say we know a smart way of doing this....then inventing a fairly screwed up mess and then some idiot would have to come along in five to ten years to solve or fix the next big crisis created. 

Explaining Obamacare to a German

First, you start with the four packages (platinum, gold, silver, bronze):

- Platinum cost the most on monthly premiums, bronze costs the least.
- If using a lot of healthcare, then platinum is the best deal, and bronze is the worst deal.
- If using very little healthcare, then platinum is the worst deal, and bronze is the best deal.
- You typically choose silver because it balances the monthly payments and the deductible as a reasonable cost, but it's not as good as platinum. You usually end up paying around 25-to-30 percent of the general costs of the care (mostly via deductibles).

Second, you must separate these into fifty state programs.  The cost varies....state by state.

Third, deductibles and co-pay matter.  Platinum: 10-percent.  Gold: 20-percent.  Silver: 30-percent.  Bronze: 40-percent.  Some with the Bronze deductible can opt for a $12,000 deductible, making the monthly premium extremely low.  Some with the Platinum deductible can opt for the $6,000 deductible and make it less.  Virtually everyone in the poverty class can get healthcare for $75 per month on the premium, but they all would have the deductible of several thousand dollars...which they don't normally have that kind of cash laying around.

Fourth, subsidy coverage.  If you are at 100-percent poverty, then on average, the government covers $6,500 for the individual or $13,000 for the family).  If you are at 130-to-150-percent above poverty, the government covers around $2,500 for the individual or $4,500 for the family).  That subsidy only covers the premium.  The deductible is back to your responsibility.  This individual will typically try to get the better package to avoid the high deductible/co-pay situation.

Fifth, every year....the rate goes up.  An example: Oregon (2015), eleven companies offered coverage. The rate increase to 2016 ranged from 8.3-percent up....to 37.8-percent up.  Five companies had a 20-percent or more increase. For 2017 in Oregon?  One company had a zero-rate increase.  Most asked for 10-to-20 percent.  Moda asked for a 32-percent increase.  For the 2018 period in Oregon, most companies asked for a 12-to-20 percent increase.  You can figure by 2024 in Oregon, the rate difference between 2017 and 2024 will be nearly 100-percent for each company offering.

Sixth, policies must be open to all individuals, regardless of health condition.

Seventh, you can decline to buy healthcare and pay a yearly fee.  It's paid via your yearly taxes.  There are two methods to paying the fee: (1) Per person, $695 and children $347 with a max of $2,085 per family.  (2) 2.5-percent of household income.  The estimate varies but it's generally believed that 20 million Americans carry no insurance.  Some people suspect it's closer to thirty million. 

Eighth, the cost difference in one year.....before Obamacare and after Obamacare....in thirty states, an increase of 60-percent or more.  In Arizona, some policies went up by 100-percent.

Ninth, the poverty line is drawn at a family of four at $24,000 roughly.  For one person, the poverty line is drawn at $12,000 roughly. With the subsidy, you'd typically pay around $80-to-$90, without the subsidy, the monthly premium would be in the $280-$300 range.

Tenth, whatever you are paying today....without the subsidy in effect....you can figure a 200-percent increase in your premium within six years (in some states, within four years).  By 2025, most healthcare premiums and deductibles will be at the level of a new car every single year.

Observation

Three houses up from mine (here in Germany)....they are wrapping up a new house construction job. 

There on this corner...in the late 1960s...was a three-bedroom place (two story) with a car-garage, basement, etc.  It was more than enough for a family of four to five members.

At some point in the early 1990s....it sold to another family with two kids. The kids eventually grew up. 

If you go around this particular region (Wiesbaden), property prices have escalated big-time.  There's virtually no way that a 30-year old guy will be able to buy some house without a lot of money put down. 

So the parents in this case decided that they'd take the corner lot that they had, with the two kids fully grown and now having families....and tore down the old house to build a three-family house instead. I would make a guess in this village of 500 structures...there's probably two or three events like this every year now where the old structure simply isn't big enough and it's entirely torn down with a new house built to meet the current needs.

I won't say it's a big trend, but it's amazing at the value on land itself....within a driving distance of an urbanized area. 

The Path to the German Coalition

Coalition governments have come and gone since the summer of 1949 in Germany (then West Germany).  In this upcoming effort to form a coalition government, some folks are shaking their heads because they think it'll be a fairly impossible task.

ARD (Public TV network, Channel One) did a fine article on this today, and covered the various topics left to ponder.

On the issue of health insurance and pension funds....the Greens have a long standing front supporting these as 'rights'.  In the case of private health care insurance....the Greens want it ended and everyone on the public policy.  The CDU/CSU and FDP position....no, it's not a right, and they will absolutely not build a system to dismantle the private health insurance option.  Odds of settling this?  Hard to predict.

More cops and better security in the country?  Oh, that's not a problem with the Greens, FDP or CDU/CSU.  They all support hiring more cops, and I expect in two years....they will all go to another round of hiring even more cops.

The internet?  Data protection is a big deal with the Greens....much less so with the FDP and CDU/CSU folks.  On this topic alone, there's probably a group of forty individuals involved and talking out the various details.

The EU?  The CDU/CSU and Greens are hyped up and pro-EU.  The FDP has this limited view of more regulations needed and aren't that favorable on the EU (note, I didn't say they are anti-EU).

Refugee limits?  The CSU is firmly in belief of a limit to be written down.  The FDP has said that a policy needs to be established and the Canadian-form of 'points' be used for future immigration.  The Greens and the CDU basically want an open door. Odds of an agreement?  Unknown.

Tax cuts?  Oddly, the four all agree on some minor tax cuts for the working-class guy.  Beyond that, they all want taxes to stay in place and in some cases on industry....increased.

The diesel business?  ARD didn't hype that in the article, but the government (the CDU/CSU mostly) wants the diesel ban effort by Greens in urban areas to stop.  The Greens want the diesel business settled but no one really explains how you can make this work.

The electric car business?  FDP points out that if you really intend to be serious about all this mandatory banning of gas/diesel new car sales by 2030....you have to allow brown-coal electrical plants to fully operate....something that the Greens can't support.

There's likely a list of 150-odd topic....from NATO, to Erodan's Turkey, and onto relations with Putin's Russia.  Education, innovation, autobahn work, the Bahn, Hamburg harbor traffic, and even public TV.....will all be discussed and form a problem in getting to a final agreement on a coalition.

In Hessen, there's been four years of a CDU-Green Party coalition.  It was simple in detail....maybe fifty-odd topics (the Frankfurt Airport was one of the top issues).  They settled things and have run a decent government.  Most Hessens won't complain over the coalition.  But that's a state-group of Greens....not the national leadership, and the focus was one simple state....not an entire nation.

I've giving this a 75-percent chance of completion, but major issues to survive four years intact.  Every single month.....some unexpected chaos will occur and the Green coalition agreement will be under a threat.

Election Drama: Germany

This is an essay to kinda end the topic of the German election.

So last night, I sat and watched 2.5 hours of live public TV 'chatter' with two different forums.  Here were the journalists, and the six political parties.  It's safe to say that by the end....it was a miserable 2.5 hours to watch the bickering and arguments continue.  How Merkel can take the three associate partners (the CSU, the Greens and the FDP) and form a coalition government.....is beyond me.  It would take a painful amount of patience to sit and go through what amounts to 150-odd political positions and cabinet posts deals.

Then you come to the SPD's fall from grace.  For most of 2016, everyone led the general public on the idea that Sigmar Gabriel would be the guy running in 2017.  What you could note though.....throughout all of the 2015 and 2016....was continued interviews with Martin Schulz who was then the head of the EU in Brussels.  It wasn't just news programs that invited him in....even the entertainment show on public TV had interviews as well. It was more than obvious that the Party was preparing him for the big welcome and the position as Chancellor-candidate.

The switch from Gabriel to Schulz?  It came in late-December 2016, and the German news media came full-blast with interviews and peppy talk.  Everyone that talked....seemed thrilled.  In a matter of just ten days....a poll or two had occurred, and the SPD had suddenly climbed two or three points.  By the end of January...polls gave the SPD 29-percent.  By the end of February, the SPD were sitting at 31-percent and leading by one or two points over Merkel.

April came, and Merkel moved up five points....the SPD's Schulz was stalled at 30-percent.  May came, and there was a 12-point buffer between Merkel and Schulz.  The numbers were now locked in.  By late September, Schulz had hit most of rock-bottom with 16-point buffer between them.

Schulz fell because of three factors.  (1) He seemed to be some bureaucrat from the EU without much else than talk or promises.  (2)  He could not pick up the immigration topic.  On the handful of occasions that this did come up....he more or less was going to go the same route as Merkel. (3) When it was brought up about the coalition that the SPD would have.....early on, Schulz projected a SPD-Linke Party-Green Party team.  For a number of SPD members....having a seat at the table with the Greens was acceptable....but the Linke Party?  No.  People will be asked about this coalition topic and I think 10-percent of the traditional SPD-voters walked away to either the Green Party or FDP as an alternate situation.

If you were going to have the alternate-to-Merkel (Schulz) or Merkel herself......well, why vote for watered-down version of Merkel?

Now?  Schulz and the head members of the SPD say there is zero interest in partnering up with the CDU.  They want to be a real opposition member.

As for the Greens in the middle of this coalition business?  There are two factions of Greens.....the ones down in the states (Baden-Wurttemberg, Hessen, etc), and those at the national level (Berlin).  You generally get the impression that if you pulled just Greens from Hessen....this coalition business would be a simple task, and they'd be easy to work with.  The national folks have a different view of things.

After watching last night....I'd say that there is a 25-percent chance that this coalition-building exercise will fail.  The CDU will be given a fair amount of time (up to six weeks) to get the talks done.  If they reach the 2nd week of November without a done-deal?  Another election will likely occur....maybe in mid-January.

Oh, and as for all those votes for the AfD?  That came up last night.  They actually got 980,000 votes from the CDU (2013 voters).  470,000 voters came from the SPD (2013 voters).  40,000 voters came from the Greens (go imagine that trend).  400,000 voters came from the Linke Party.

Election Results of German Election

Just announced (6PM):

CDU/CSU: 32.5 percent
SPD: 20 percent
Green Party: 9.5 percent
AfD: 13.5 percent
Linke Party: 9 percent
FDP: 10.5 percent

Comments:  For the CDU/CSU....it's a fair decrease over four years ago....going down 9 points.  Major loss for the SPD....losing 5.7 points.

Dolschtosslengende Explained

I read through a fine article today....entitled "The Democrats' Dolchstosslegende"....by Daniel Greenfield.

There's a brief talk over Dolchstosslengende, how it affected Germans after WW I, and how it fell into play in the 1920s and 1930s.  Then Greenfield goes to take the same concept to talk about Americans and their inability to handle Hillary's defeat in November 2016.

Dolschstosslengende?  It loosely translate to a stab-in-the-back....meaning you expected something that never did happen (of a very serious nature).  The same expression would be for a guy who arrives on Friday at work and finds that a guard is blocking everyone....that the company is shutting down and you go to getting all hyped up about the unfairness of the situation.

Before 1919....this typically would come up with people talking about an expectation of a great crop, and have a massive rainfall to destroy the crop potential....and you needed to go and blame something.

If you hang around Germans enough...there typically needs to be blame dished out for failures or bad times.  Just accepting things....isn't usually a German habit.

Dolschtosslengende often revolves around whining and complaining....that you can't take responsibility or understand.

In the German case....prior to WW I....every SINGLE conflict that they'd engaged upon since 1800....was a German or Prussian victory.  So when defeat came in 1919....there was disbelief.

Not only did Dolschtosslengende come out of this period....there's another term that got invented for use....."Novemberverbrecher".  This meant to call every German leader who signed the surrender agreement....as a criminal.

Most intellectuals and historians will say that the war was basically concluding on it's own in 1918 because of economic and agricultural reasons.  It was simply something that had to occur.

So you look at everyone's attitude in the 2015 to November 2016 period.  Everyone in the US, and Europe....was focused on a Hillary win.  Never once did the Democratic Party go and suggest some skeptical view.  Journalists simply jumped on the train and rode along.  Even on election night....Hillary stood there in disbelief at the hotel at the Dolschtosslengende situation....it was not supposed to be possible to lose these five or six states that folded over to Trump.

Blame?  We simply went from that night on.....turbo blame dished out....from comedians and the Hollywood elite....TV hosts....journalists.....intellectuals....and an assortment of people with the Dolschtosslengende opinion.  Even today....there are millions around the globe on a tangent and still hyped up.  The NFL and NBA crowd?  They simply fell into the same mind-set.

What happens in 2020, if Trump wins again?  Dolschtosslengende II?  Yeah, I hate to bring this up, but it's the likely outcome.

Trying to Explain to a German

Ever since November, I will occasionally have a German try to get a explanation of how Trump ever won the election.  Most are pro-Hillary folks and seem drawn to view the election from almost a year ago as a 'big mistake'.

I originally tried to explain the whole campaign, which was a five-minute ten-subject lecture.  Germans typically didn't get any part of the understanding.

After a while, I went to a lecture that was mostly built around explaining five or six issues with the Democratic Party ever since the 1980s and the arrival of Bill Clinton.  Well....the Germans didn't really get any part of that understanding either.

Then I went to explaining social media, fake news in detail, and the general hoax of the Russian hacking....which most Germans respond that Americans can't be that consumed with social media, or that stupid to believe fake news and that the hacking stories don't seem to carry much weight.

So, I've kinda decided to shift gears and when the topic comes up....I'm using the Clint Eastwood explanation....too many people got tired of the kiss-ass generation (both in the Republicans and Democrats).  This voting group figured that sending Trump as the messenger....was a good message.  And they don't really care about disturbing people....they deserve whatever comes.  I expect Germans intellectuals to be disturbed by this....likely saying that in Germany, they don't have kiss-assers.  I'll ask them to go out into various pubs and talk to working-class Germans.  It won't be a friendly matter.

Positions After the Smoke Clears

There's a good piece in Focus today talking of the top dozen CDU members under Merkel, and where they may stand in the coming weeks with the 'new' government.  Merkel has strongly hinted that half the minister positions will be filled by women.  Those mentioned:

Peter Altmaier: He's been Merkel's chief of staff for four years.  Some think he'll sit back into the Bundestag until summer of 2019, and then take a role within the CDU at Brussels and the EU.

Johanna Wanka.  There's a suggestion that she'll end as the Minister of Research.

Jens Spahn.  There's talk that he'll end up as Minister of Finance.

Peter Tauber.  He was the head of the party apparatus.....there's talk now as the Minister for Integration.

Wolfgang Schauble.  There's talk he'll end up as the President of the Bundestag (the guy who runs scheduling and forces rules upon the Bundestag).

Joachim Herrmann.  The CSU member likely ends up as Interior Minister.

Helge Braun.  Likely to be digital chief.

Gitta Connemann.  She's discussed as head of Consumer Protection or the Agricultural Ministry.

The Cost Factor of Wiesn

The Wiesn or Oktoberfest.....is a major topic for another week, and then it'll end.

Today, Focus carried a piece which discussed the issue of personal costs.

You see....there are two ways of doing the fest.  You can go cheap/reasonable, which means for a couple....roughly 200 Euro per day ($250 American).  I know....it's a fair sum of money. Toss in the hotel deal, and you will be discussing another 120 to 200 Euro on top of that.  Then there's the more expensive rate....nearing 2,000 Euro per day.

This ultra-high deal usually involves people who want the higher-class fest tent....the more expensive food....the better entertainment, etc.  These are also the people who pay the 500 Euro per day for a hotel room.

Most people....I would say close to ninety-percent....are the 100-Euro per day pro individual types.  You go and figure the 10.50 Euro per Maas (stein) for beer, and maybe a max of five of these over a eight-hour period.  The quickly-drunk crowd will try to do one Maas per hour, and find themselves laid out on the grassy section on the east side of the compound.

All of this however....equals the big profit question of the Oktoberfest.  For some bar-maids and catering folks....this fest is 50-percent of their yearly salary or profit mechanism.  Without the yearly fest, I would take an educated guess that 20-percent of the city tax revenue situation would dry up.

As for the hefty-players spending the 2,000 Euro a day?  These are people who've saved all year and this is their week to party and have fun.  

Explaining American Health Insurance to a German

On some occasions, Americans in Germany will be caught in the open....having some German want to challenge or interpret what they heard on German public TV.  So the topic of US health insurance is on my mind.

It's a difficult topic to explain to a German because you have to lead off and say that 50 different levels exist because of fifty different states....then you add the bronze, silver, and gold levels of insurance.

Then you come to the deductible situation.  For an individual (single gal), the national average (2016 numbers, from E-Health Insurance.com is $4,358.  For a family, the national average deductible is $7,983.

Most Germans start to shake their head because that's only the deductible.

So you explain the subsidized business, then you get to the beef of the whole topic.  For individual, the average costs around $320 a month.  For the Family unit....it's near $830 a month.  Again, 2016 numbers.

This means that a single guy will be paying $8,300 roughly a year.  For a family, it's around $17,000.

Naturally, Germans will then ask why?  This usually goes to five basic reasons (some people have a list of twenty-five reasons....but why complicate the mess).

1.  Drug costs.  Nothing that congress has done over the past twenty-five years....has made drug costs any cheaper.....most of the time, they've rigged the cost to escalate.  Maybe lobbyists were involved....maybe it was pure stupidity.

2.  Defensive postures by doctors.  Because of legal insurance required for doctors....they ask for more tests, and you could be taking eight tests for a situation....where only three really make sense in the first round of things.

3.  Doctors versus specialists.  There is a general rate for doctors, and there is a general rate for specialists.  One will drive a BMW 300-series car.....the other will drive a BMW 700-series car.  The German will typically grin at this comparison.

4.  Hospital staffs are made up of doctors, specialists, nurses, security guards, support personnel, and administrators.  Toss in the same situation with health insurance companies.  You have to pay for each in the system.  This explains why a 40-cent aspirin will be $7 when you sit in the hospital.

5.  Now, you come to brand-medicine.  X-brand is better than Y-brand.  If you got cancer.....you want X-brand.  X-brand costs more.  Sometimes, there's no substantial difference between X-brand and Y-brand.

The German is likely shaking his head at this point because it's the wrong way of looking at this.  Then you inject the last part of this discussion.  Every single year....the rate goes up.  Sometimes three or four percent.   Sometimes, six to ten percent.  Sometimes, twenty percent.  This $17,000 number for 2016 that you gave?  It'll be $20,000 in less than three years.  If you go to a spreadsheet and figure 2025?  It'll probably hit $27,000 by that point.  You could buy an awful nice car for that amount of money, or send two kids off to Auburn University for a year.

Finally you come to two integral pieces which make things difficult to project.  There's the problem over accepting everyone into the same bucket regardless of past health issues.  For decades, the insurance companies made this a difficult barrier....now with Obamacare....you have no choice, you must accept all applicants.  But this has to inflate the previous level of cost to another plateau.  The second piece is that you can opt out,, and the next year....opt in.  Pay the $1,000 and just skip this situation with health insurance.  Even with the subsidy business....you can't get around the deductible side, and most low-wage earners will tell you that they can't find $5,000 a year for possible doctor visits on top of the monthly premium.  So company X will say this year they have 3-million people in their program....next year they find that it's 2.85-million, and the year after that it'll be 3.1-million....all because of the opt-in or opt-out situation.

The Pepper-Spray Story

This story got brought up by my regional news (HR, for Hessen).

The cops will tell you that they ever have this type of problem.

Today (Friday), cops got called out to a Hessen school in the Limburg-Weilburg (NW of where I live).  Local school had this episode around 9:30 in the morning.....tear-gas.

The ambulance crew had to react as well....saying around sixty kids and teachers....kids mostly twelve to sixteen....were injured in some way from the gas attack (pepper-spray).  All of this revolves around two seventh-grade boys.

School was terminated for the rest of the day, and likely resumes on Monday.  I have my doubts that the two boys in this episode will be there. Journalists didn't say much but I would take a guess that they will be suspended for at least a week.

Then cops noted....this was the 3rd episode in two weeks.  In one of these episodes (over at Kassel), it was a 15-year old kid and they are checking the legal rules if they can financially charge the response by the cops and ambulance crews to the kid and his family. In this case, they noted 18 rescue vehicles, three ambulances, and a rescue helicopter.  I would take a humble guess....with the chopper alone....it'll add up to four-thousand Euro minimum.  For the parents, there's going to be a bit of shock if the judge does hand the bill over.

This episode in Limburg?  No one say much if the bill for the cops and ambulances will be tossed at the two punks.  All of this revolves around an increased amount of pepper-spray now on the open-market.  On any given day within Wiesbaden and Mainz....I could stop by ten different shops and buy the stuff.  I could also go via Amazon and have it delivered to the house.  There's probably five-percent of the 'teenies' out there....carrying the stuff now in their back-packs.

The No Real Faith Story

The Handelsblatt (the German version of the Wall Street Journal) came out with an interesting piece...the emphasis of this circled around negativity in the government, and the CDU-SPD political apparatus having to change their tunes and focus on things that they would prefer to avoid.

In the midst of the article....you come to this comment about a recent German poll....71-percent of German public ACTIVELY distrust their government.  Seventy-percent say they have no real faith in the new they get via public-TV and print-media. Eight out of ten Germans don't trust their political parties.

Then you come to this odd stance in the polls....almost sixty-percent of the public believe that solutions can't be invented anymore to solve problems.

All of this accomplished.....while Merkel is Chancellor.

From the 1960s to recently, the two chief parties alternated every four years over pension-reform and tax-reform.  Each had a different program and hyped that as their political stance.

The thing is....as each program came.....people started to think about what they really got.  If someone said tax-reform was coming....it typically meant that you got from 20 to 30 Euro a month back into your pocket.  Taking into consideration  inflation....it didn't amount to much of a deal.  If someone talked about pension-reform....it typically meant that you got 25 to 35 Euro a month on top of the previous amount.

In recent years, with the internet available....people compared the programs and realized the marginal impact to their lives.

Around fifteen years ago....the SPD hyped up some massive welfare-reform program (Hartz-IV).  People jumped onboard with this and the social budget took a pretty good cut.  Beyond that.....for most folks....it had zero affect on their lives.

The past decade with the various Merkel coalitions?  No scandals for the most part.   No sure fire solutions for taxation or pensions noted.  The only cure for increased crime?  More cops (10,000 to be hired). No limits on migrants....but she's using the EU vehicle to say this incoming number are their 'fair-share'....pretending since they said it....it's fine.

In a way, the German public are progressing to a point where some French-like political guy like Macron....could stand up a political party in a fairly short period of time in Germany, and likely get 30-percent of the vote because of the discontent growing with the public.  It doesn't mean anything gets fixed (as we now see with Macron).....just that the act of faking people seems to work well.

The Germany First Story

“We have learned that it was not ‘Germany first’ that made our country strong and prosperous. Rather, it was only ‘European and international responsibility first’ that gave us Germans peace and prosperity.” 

-- German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel at the UN and responding to President Trump's speech

It was a fairly decent speech by the German foreign minister, and he hyped the theme against President Trump.  I sat and pondered over the words a bit that were emphasized by most of the news media.

Among days remembered for something by the bulk of German society....oddly, 8 May 1945 (the end of WW II for Germany) is not tossed around or mentioned much.  Oddly as well....6 and 9 August are often noted in the German news media as the days when the US dropped nukes over Japan.  You can count on a dozen-odd references every year around this first week of August and discussing the unfortunate use of nuclear weapons by the US on a defenseless Japan.

What made Germany strong and prosperous?  I tend to have a different view from Sigmar Gabriel.

There are three basic ingredients to the period between 8 May 1945 and today:

1.  The Marshall Plan.  It is true....the plan was not finalized and implemented until the spring of 1948....roughly three years after the war.  In today's value....$132 billion was pumped into Europe (not just Germany).  Over a four-year period, it was one of most bold maneuvers by the US in the past two-hundred years.  They literally shoveled money into the European economy....to reboot it after the war.

Trade barriers?  Removed.  Stagnant industry?  They got charged up and active...hiring people.  In fact, German industry by the mid-1950s was so short-manned....that they had to go and bring in thousands from around Europe (particularly Turkey) to reach their goals.  Bombed-out cities (not just in Germany) got a chance to get funding, and start thousands of construction projects....on housing, roads, bridges and infrastructure.

In the US view....trade mattered.  A stagnant Europe, and in particular...a stagnant Germany....weren't really trade-partners, unless they were back at full-strength.

2.  Determined Germans who were left over from the era prior to 1945.  When you go and look at determination....they were pretty well maxed out.  Engineers and architects laid out the plans.....and millions of Germans picked up shovels and hammers.  You can go and look at photos of the war damage, and how things still looked around by 1948....then gaze at the images from the mid-1970s....thirty years later, and get shocked over the amount of effort accomplished.  These are folks who worked six days a week....often ten hours a day...and were proud of their accomplishments.

No one stood around and said "Germany first", but they weren't working for some moral cause, European unification, or some EU goal.  They were there....heart and soul....for rebuilding Germany.

3.  Finally, not to openly criticize Gabriel....but if you walked around Germany and noted the amount of poverty and stagnant wages among the working-class Germans....there might be some argument over a prosperous Germany.

A week ago, I noted some government report that was published and noted that roughly 2-million German kids are in some poverty environment....some more than others.  It's nothing to brag about and people have been aware of these statistics for at least a decade.

If you go ask these particular Germans about European and international responsibility....they will give you a few choice words that they are still waiting on their 'golden-ticket' from the EU to arrive.

There's a board landscape here in Germany.  When you go and drive around....there's a lot of effort to make things appear as they are.  Craftsmanship, determination, engineering skills, and enthusiasm made this all possible.  Yeah, maybe no one wants to utter the phrase....but silently....it was 'Germany first' in their minds.

Catalonia: 22 Sep 2017

Over the last 24 hours, if you watch German news....there's more hype going on in Spain over the 1 October anticipated vote in Catalonia.

This morning, I opened up the business news and there's an interesting piece there from Bloomberg.

The Spanish authorities are all engaged in stopping any vote from occurring.....to the point that they've moved 16,000 cops from around the nation....to the Barcelona region.

Now, you'd look at that and think over this development....it means that they've probably taken a significant number of cops from the rest of the nation, and if anything happens over the next ten days....they will be unable to react.  Terror act or mass demonstration anywhere else?

But it gets better.  To house the cops....they've gone and rented a couple of ferries, and intend to dock them at the Port of Barcelona.

To some bureaucrat in Madrid, it makes perfect logistical sense.

I looked at the idea of this dockside placement and it would make immediate sense as a target.  You'd go and cut off electricity and water to the port.  Then you'd cut off road access.....burning tires, wrecked vehicles, etc.  You would make the housing for the cops more of a problem than an asset.

It seems like every single day....the pressure intensifies and puts the federal government of Spain at a weaker position.  Even across Europe, there appears to be pro-Catalonia efforts underway....which you would not expect.  

Debate Talk

It's an amusing story which comes up over ARD (German public channel One) today.

Back around three weeks ago...they held the one and only political debate between the CDU and SPD candidates (Merkel versus Schulz).

A fair number of Germans watched the debate.  A fair number of those who viewed it....weren't that hyped up or enthusiastic after it ended.  The intellectual crowd kinda noticed that.  It's been a topic of conversation.

You see....within the German sphere of political thinking....when you have a political debate....it OUGHT to be charged-up and hyping people to stand on one side or the other.

When you stand back to admire the 3 September debate....it was an arranged deal.  Chancellor Merkel wrote down some requirements to get her into the room.  There had to be four moderators...only one single debate....and a limited amount of time.  She made it blunt....if you didn't agree to her conditions, she wouldn't have a public debate.

What ARD now says in public circles is that they will never allow anyone to dictate the debate format anymore.  ARD wants a design worked out over the next four years prior to the next election....working up a board group with ZDF (the other public network).

The odds that it'll be accepted by the candidates of the SPD, CDU, or five lesser parties in 2021?  Well, no one mentions that part of the story.

Several of the candidates have accepted guest appearances on public and private channels.....with regular people asking questions, instead of the journalists or intellectuals.  To be honest, I suspect that most of the German public prefer that type of question and answer situation.....instead of the 'fake-type' debate that ARD imagines.

Why the change dreamed up by ARD?  Well....there's this vision occurring where some people think an entire campaign could be mounted without much assistance or help via the public TV networks (ARD, ZDF).  That you could Q and A sessions....social media advertising....and just speeches.  In that scenario....the importance or value of public TV in Germany diminishes.  I know....it's hard to imagine a lesser value than today in public German TV.....but if you didn't really have anything to gain via public TV....the game is changed.

It'll be curious to see what happens in 2021, and if all this talk by ARD comes to any constructive change.

Oh, and one final note....for anyone to suggest that the SPD candidate (Schulz) really benefited from this debate with Merkel?  No....the numbers actually show a slight slide in the three weeks after that debate.  It did little to advance his position.

Illegal Voting Story

This story got brought up by HR (our regional public TV network folks).

So, back in 2016, there were municipal elections throughout Germany....just for the local level.  This episode started up here in Hessen in the Kelsterbach area (town south of Frankfurt, 20 km south).

This German woman came in to vote at the local polling site.  The poll folks looked up her name and said 'no'.....she had already mailed in an absentee ballot.  The woman said 'no'....she had not requested such a ballot and had not voted.

This led to a cop report, and a local prosecutor got involved.  After a fairly long review....the prosecutor now says four suspects were involved in potentially 33 cases (none are final yet).

Generally, what the four did was simply apply for an absentee ballot....signed the document, and received the ballot.

The case itself?  It won't be wrapped up in 2017, and no one can say for sure about court action.  The four might have to appear in front of a judge and there might be a real court episode to unfold.

Absentee ballots used to be rarely used in a German election.  Trends over the past decade have gone to significant usage....with Kelsterbach having around 20-percent of it's vote done by such a ballot.  Nationally, the number varies state to state, but some believe the total nears 25-percent.

As for the ease of applying for the absentee ballot?  You get a letter around two months prior to the election which explains where the local polling station is located, and explains the method for requesting a absentee ballot (typically, you are on vacation or supposed to be in a medical situation). So it's not difficult to get the ballot.

Why these four got involved in this? Unknown. It might be an interesting story to be told in court but one might suspect that they were just sitting around and thought it'd be an amusing thing to attempt.

As for changing a situation?  I looked at the population of Kelsterbach.  It's near 13,500.  If you dismiss the under-18 crowd and the non-Germans....it's probably near 9,500 adults in the town who are registered.  If you use the 75-percent voting trend....then roughly 7,250 are voting.  A 33-vote illegal vote change?  It doesn't amount to much for a municipal election.  Now....if this were 333-votes.....it could shift a unknown party or lesser-voted party up into better numbers....maybe giving them one seat on the city council.  Maybe this was the intention of the four individuals under investigation.

As for fixing this?  It'll be curious to see what happens.  Maybe they might force people to come by a local post office and present an ID to get the absentee ballot when it arrives.

The "Unknowns" Out of Sunday's Germany Election

I used to work with a boss who had this expression that the world is made up of knowns and unknowns.  It's the unknowns that will come to mess you up....at least that was his opinion.

For the Sunday Germany election.....there is a short list of unknowns:

1.  In the last election 2013....71.5-percent of the registered voters came out.  For 2009.....70.8-percent came out.  For 2005, 77.7-percent came out.  For 2002, 79.1-percent came out.

There's been this trend ever since the wall came down in the early 1990s....drifting downward on voters showing up.  Most polls are saying it'll be a normal election, and likely in the 72-percent range.  If it were to go to 65-percent or back up to 79-percent?  That would be a significant factor to numbers going radically different.

If there were five-percent more people showing up to vote....how would they vote?  Would they be more likely AfD voters?  Or perhaps Linke Party voters?

2.  The coalition chatter is constant now.  There are only two scenarios.  The CDU-CSU team with the SPD.  Or the CDU-CSU-Green-FDP deal.

The general public aren't that hyped up over either.  Some SPD supporters think the party needs to avoid the coalition deal and just concentrate on opposing the CDU agenda.  Some think that the CDU and Green mix will only lead to trouble.

3.  What if the SPD gets around 22-percent?  Most folks now think that Martin Schulz (the candidate for the SPD)....will retire, and new leadership will come to the party.  No one is sure about who the leadership will be.

4.  Will the AfD surprise folks with a last-minute surge and get 15-percent of the vote?  I seriously doubt this suggestion and think the number will be more like 11-to-12 percent.  But a 15-percent vote situation would probably shock journalists a good bit.

5.  Finally, the cabinet posts will probably change 100-percent after this election.  Several folks are set to retire....several expect a change of scenery.  Someone will get stuck with the Defense Ministry, and they probably aren't that enthusiastic for the position.

The Rental Brake Story

Back around two years ago....the Merkel coalition government cooked up this law defined as a 'rental brake'.  This was supposed to be the savior for the affordable apartment mess that everyone was hyped up about.

The deal involved cities which would be required to collect data....establish a baseline, and then limit apartment prices from escalating 'unfairly'.  The deal meant data-collection over ALL rents in the city.....for four years, and rent could only go up around 20-percent per a year year period....more than that....was illegal.

What if your city refused to collect the data?  Amusing enough....several cities didn't play along. There was no mechanism to force them into this game.

So all of this comes up today because a Berlin regional court spoke up and said the law is unconstitutional.  What happens now?  It'll get shoved up to the national level and the Constitutional Court will have a review.

The Berlin court says on the principle of equality (as written in the Basic Law)....it doesn't work.  In some ways, I'd suspect that you'd have to make the system work in every single village, city or urban region....and it just wasn't built to work like that.  If you were a landlord from a town a mile outside of the rent-brake region?  You were unaffected, and could do a renovation program and jump the rent up 50-percent over a two-year period.

You can figure at least a year will be wasted by the national court folks, and this will all come back to the Bundestag to work up another fix.  Trying to make the rental-brake work across the entire nation and all towns?  Go and explain this to the Landlords and how you'd make this work.  I doubt if you can find that many who'd be happy over such a massive program and the amount of regulation required.

Yet, it'll be another Merkel coalition that has to deal with this mess.

Those Lost 48

I noted a few days ago about the 'missing' refugees who were encountered down near Oder-Spree (on the far eastern side of Germany).....a group of fifty Iraqis who were picked up by a truck inspection at the end of last week.  All were Iraqis (or so they said).

They were sent off to the regional refugee center in Eisenhuttenstadt.  Within forty-eight hours....they'd mostly disappeared (two were left there).

Cops?  Total mystery to them where the refugees went.Well....some witness came up and spoke to the cops.  Several cars showed up near the refugee compound....all with Bielefeld tag plates.  Bielefeld is on the northwest side of Germany....in North Rhineland Westphalia.

By the general rules established by the Germans....you don't necessarily get your pick these days on where you will be distributed.  There's a system to it.  So if you had relatives or friends in Hessen....it doesn't mean you would get to go to Hessen for resettlement.

What happens now?  Cops are looking for the 48-odd individuals.  They need to square things up and just simply return to the processing compound.  Arrest and charges?  Well....it is possible.  But I kinda doubt it.  At the heart of the matter....the system will process you through and you get a 'ticket' to one particular state.  That's your home until you get through the paperwork and approval process.

Regional Politics

There is a great piece via HR (my regional HR public TV network) today on Frankfurt, and the trappings of a metropolitan city.

For those who've never been to Frankfurt....I would classify in the category similar to Chicago.  It's a business city, which saw rapid growth since 1900, and today sits at roughly 740,000 residents within it's city border.  If you include the near-by areas of Wiesbaden, Mainz, Offenbach, Hanau, and Darmstadt....you'd be talking about three million people within a 30-minute drive of Frankfurt.  It's figured that that roughly a million people transit each day to work within Frankfurt.  Toss in the banking sector, industry, and the airport....Frankfurt in some ways is the driving engine of a major part of the German success story.

So HR looked at this trend with Frankfurt.  Most everyone will now say that traffic for the city is becoming a major problem, and that affordable housing is almost non-existent within the city.

If you were working-class and looking for reasonable rent....you'd have to go and look 30 kilometers outside of the city, and plan on riding the railway into work each day.  People complain about this strategy and being forced to live beyond the city.

Politically, this draws all of the political parties in an election to some stance of talking about solutions and fixing the mess.  Promises are made, and rarely kept.  All of this remembered each four years, and repeated for the general Hessen state election every five years.

The voting trend in Frankfurt?  In 2013, the last big national election, the CDU took around 52-percent of the vote in Frankfurt, with the SPD coming to almost half that number.  The Greens barely took 8-percent in that vote.  Darmstadt played out a different situation....with the SPD taking a win with 37-percent vote while the CDU took 36-percent of the vote.

The problem here is really a regional problem that goes beyond just Frankfurt itself, and touches on both Hessen and Rhineland Pfalz.  Frankfurt's urbanization issue has grown to such a pace that it's beyond one city council to handle or repair.

Oddly, the entertainment landscape, the local sports scene, the airport, the connections via the Frankfurt railway system, and the world-class local train network all make the city a very attractive place to live.  Toss in a hyped up education system throughout the entire region....and a large international population, and you've got one of the more dynamic cities of Germany.

The 'Golden Visa' Story

This story came out of N-TV this morning in Germany and has a curious twist to it.

Generally....to get a visa into any EU country....there are some written procedures and it's not a simple process....unless you claim asylum or migration issues.  If you were some wealthy Turk, or some high-political South Korean guy, or some corrupt Brazilian guy....you'd have problems getting such a visa.

So....someone came up to notice that Portugal has found various ways to allow non-EU folks to gain citizenship.  In the cases noted in this report....some Brazilian businessmen simply walked in and paid cash sums to get the visa.

More or less, it's just a copy of what has been going on in Cyprus.

The going rate for Portugal?  You come in and buy 500k Euro of property, and you get a visa.  Hold the property for five years, you go to the second tier.....full-up citizenship.  No, you don't have to give up your original citizenship.

Accusations of money-laundering in this process?  Well...it comes up.  For these businessmen involved in the Portugal episode....money was shifted around and it appears that Brazil may not have known about the money existing or had a chance to tax folks on the money.

Adding to the curious deal....Portugal even admits that a fair number of Chinese folks have entered the country via this program, and have visas....likely moving onto full-up citizenship five years later.  The N-TV folks even note that China has serious laws created that limit you to moving roughly 50k dollars a year in money....outside of the country.  How did all the Chinese come up with the 500k Euro to buy property?  That might be an interesting question to ask.

There must be tens of millions of Euro shifted around Europe each month in various money-laundering schemes for the purpose of getting visas or property acquisition lined up.  The EU folks?  Oddly, this isn't one of the hundred-odd things on their 'to-do' list to regulate.  Journalists?  They get all hyped up because it's just unethical in their mind....not right.

If you look at the Portugal gimmick....it's rigged to push up urban property prices, with foreigners buying the property and driving those prices up.

The odds that almost every single EU country has such a 'golden-visa'?  That's the thing about it....you just sense that it's pretty well accepted now.

The Coalition Woes

Once you get past all the hype on the German election (set for this coming Sunday).....you come to realize a major problem building up for the coalition game that must be played out over the next month.

The SPD will likely finish second, with a dismal 22-odd-percent.  They've said for weeks now that they now realize their brand-name has been screwed over by the way that they've done the coalition deal for the past four years.  They would prefer NOT to be part of the next coalition and go through a rebuilding process.

The 'Jamaica-coalition'?  This idea takes the CDU-CSU folks over to the Green Party and FDP.  It's the only other option to reach the 50-percent level.  A fair number of big-wigs within the CDU believe that the Greens can be a viable partner.  The FDP folks?  It's very few that think that this can be worked out.

The FDP will likely walk into a room, and list out the draft laws they want (to include immigration) and the cabinet posts they desire.  The Greens will do the same.  The CSU will do the same.  For Merkel and company....it's a fairly tense period and the only way to get this to some conclusion....is to give in and allow a number of things to occur....with probably less than one-third of the cabinet posts ending up with them.

The odds that no coalition will occur?  A month ago, that idea would have been laughed at.  I would take a guess that 10-to-20 percent of the public are now considering the idea.

The FDP might shock folks and just say that they want one single cabinet post....the vice-chancellor position...but they want the immigration law totally re-written....something that the Greens just can't agree upon.

The Greens might walk in and want the diesel crisis to end....by massive regulation and harmful economic theatrics on diesel owners....something that most of the CSU won't agree to.

I suspect by the end of September....most news media sources will be discussing the pain involved in this coalition discussion, and the hint of a repeat election by January.

The Dead German Story

This came up in the German news yesterday and lays out a complex landscape from which Germans tend to react in different ways.

Months ago....at a bank operation in Essen-Borbeck (northwest Germany....urbanized region outside of Essen).....this older guy collapsed (83 years old).  No one has ever talked to why he collapsed....maybe a heart attack....maybe a blood sugar issue...but this part of the story has always been left out.

So he's laying there with no movement.

A couple and a guy (not associated with each other) enter into this area which has a surveillance camera after the collapse.  They walk around the guy, and proceed to do their business with the ATM machine or the bank receipt machine.  Then they walk out....without calling for help or rendering aid.

Reason?  They would be asked later and then just refused to cooperate with the cops.

Cops review the tapes and figure out who the three were.  Court episode starts up because of the non-rendering of aid (it's actually written in law that you have to provide some kind of help).

The guy on the ground?  He eventually was reported for an ambulance....made it to a hospital....then died a week later.  Some accounts suggest that he might have died more so from the impact of the floor to his head, than the collapse itself.  It was the 4th customer to enter the bank....that eventually called for a ambulance.

The German judge?  He decided the verdict yesterday.  All three of the individuals said they thought the guy was a sleeping homeless guy.  The judge didn't believe their story.  The woman's fine? 3,600 Euro....one guy was to pay 2,800 Euro, and the 2nd guy was to pay 2,400 Euro.  Why a different fee for each?  The judge didn't give any wisdom to that angle.

As you read through the whole court episode....one odd aspect comes out....a medical expert noted that timing here didn't really matter.  The guy on the floor with the concussion could have been helped with the first folks to enter the bank area, and help arriving twenty minutes earlier....but it didn't matter....the guy would have died anyway, period.

Yeah....all this court action....all this dramatic stuff by the German court system.....fines for the three individuals....but the old guy would have passed away anyway.

One of the first fifty-odd things I learned in 1978 upon arriving in Germany is that people have a general tendency to avoid getting into messy events that don't involve them.  German law dictates that on the autobahn....if an accident occurs, you must stop and render aid.  You have no choice about this.  If you asked a hundred Germans...a pretty fair percentage would admit that they'd really prefer NOT to engage in some emergency with folks they don't know.

In this case?  On an average day around Wiesbaden....you'd probably come across at least twenty homeless folks laying around on the street or park areas.  Should you call the cops on each one of them in fear that they've collapsed?  Well....no.

In Frankfurt? I'd take a guess that in a eight-hour period of walking around....I would probably find well over a hundred individuals just laying on the street.  Most of them sleeping off some alcohol episode or getting over their heroin-high. Calling the cops or some ambulance?  At least with the ambulance crews....they'd react and show up....but it'd just be some rescue event that they'd repeat in two weeks with the same guy again.

In the case of these three individuals with the fines?  I think all three will go to a higher court, and the fines will be dismissed eventually.  If the judge had assigned the same value to all three....it might have some wisdom attached.  In this case, I think that each of the three gave some verbal commentary that disagreed with the judge in some manner, and he handed out the fines based on the words and nothing else.

Electric Car Story

As I wandered through the Frankfurt Auto Show yesterday.....it's painfully obvious that diesel sales are ended.  The new era is electric.

The thing is....electric-car sales aren't worth bragging about.  Back in December 2016....the Germans were just about to hit 100,000 electric cars registered.  For 2017....they might get toward 25,000 sold.  It's just not that popular.

I noticed Sweden discussed their electric car situation this week.  They got real aggressive....dumping all sales tax on the electric cars.  You could save around 5,000 Euro via their method.  Their complaint however.....is that they just don't have enough recharging stations around the country for the growing number of electric cars, and this is not going to get any better in 2018 or 2019.

A typical German will go to a show like this, and it'll plant a seed over the display, the look of the car, and then he'll go and investigate the whole electric car routine.

First, there's this range issue.  Talking gas here....an example is the Ford Focus with the 1.0 size engine and small tank, with 40 MPG....you can figure on one single tank that it'll get you 400 miles.  The BMW 320i has a small tank as well, with 35 MPG on average and you can figure that the car will get you around 550 miles.

For battery-cars?  The Nissan Leaf which people talk alot about?  It's about 110 miles on one charge.  The e-Golf from VW?  It gets you around 125 miles on one charge.  The Tesla gets near 295 miles on one charge.  If you go for the new Tesla-S model....it's around 330 miles.

A German would gaze at the mileage per charge and just shake their head for the most part.  It might make sense for a guy who is a urban-dweller or never drives more than 50 kilometers per day.

Second, you come to the weird scenario business and quicker consumption deal.  When the electric car folks talk about consumption....it's under average conditions.  So, lets throw in a snow-storm, which Germany is famous for....with high demand for heat while traveling....the mileage is likely decreased by 10-percent.  How about stop-and-go traffic in the mid-summer period, with a hot temperature situation?  AC going at max rate?  That's probably cutting the mileage by more than 25-percent.

Third, the recharge?  The guy who stops at some autobahn point for a electrical charge probably has a 90-percent charge situation, and will require a minimum of one hour....maybe even two hours.  Several of the electric cars out there and being sold need four to six hours to do a 100-percent charge.  Germans aren't that eager to go and waste two hours of their time just sitting around and waiting.

Fourth, the consumption cost factor?  Germany is on the high-end of grid cost for European countries.  You can do the spreadsheet analysis and find that you save nothing by going to the electrical car (hybrid might be a totally different case).  In Iceland, with the cheaper electricity?  Yeah, there's a vast savings.

Fifth, a German will get around to trust on the grid and its reliability issue.  On this, I have to admit that reliability is something that you come to expect out of the German grid.  In an average year, you might have a two-hour period where some storm knocked power out.  But for a German who has to base their whole lifestyle upon the grid.....can you trust it to that degree?

As much as the environmentalists, the political folks, and the car companies ready to get a return on their investment of battery-cars.....I don't see the enthusiasm there.  Germans ask too many questions and have a high expectation of return.  Maybe if you could get a full 500 kilometers on a one-hour charge situation, and you knew that there were 500,000 public recharging stations out there for you around cities and autobahns....it'd all make sense.  In my village, we've yet to put up a public recharging station.

I've sat and looked at the public recharging station deal.  Almost all of them have a charging rate price-scheme which might be slightly higher than what you'd pay for your home.  Most have some station-point usage charge associated with the re-charge....meaning that you pay a Euro or two for just using this one particular station. Credit cards required?  That's an interesting point.....all of the stations I've ever seen.....require the credit card.....no cash.

So I would conclude this with the observation that electric car trend has yet to take off, and I don't see this occurring unless Germany dumps the sales tax and makes it a national policy of building 2,000 charging stations every single month for several years.  Beyond that....it'll be impossible to sell this to a German.

Then, Poof, They were Gone

Toward the end of last week....down in the Brandenburg region....the cops pulled over this tractor-trailer rig...which had roughly 50 Iraqi refugees onboard....heading north into Germany.

Germans looked at the situation and did the standard checklist thing....removing them from the truck and taking them to a central reception facility near Eisenhuttenstadt.

So a couple of days pass, and Focus reported on this today.  It's rather odd....most everyone has disappeared.  Kids...women....and men....mostly all gone.

Two individuals left out of the fifty folks.  One was a juvenile....the other simply was hiding under a bed.

The German authorities?  They have this theory that all were destined for a particular area...like North Rhineland Westphalia....or Frankfurt.  They have no intention of allowing the German system to force them into one particular region or city.

As for them all being legit Iraqis?  Well....no one from the German side of things has said yes or no to that....just that they identified themselves.  Passports weren't mentioned and you kinda wonder if they were fake Iraqis or real Iraqis.

All of this unsettles Germans to some degree (not the political folks but the working-class folks).  Here were fifty-odd people in some compound situation, and a couple of days later....gone.  No one can even say that they are still in Germany, or if they want to be picked up on some visa.

Frankfurt Car Show

I spent the day at the Frankfurt International Car Show, which always has a number of interesting things.

1.  Diesel vehicle on display?  NO.  None.  It was very obvious.  The sales agenda appears to be completely dead now in Germany.

2.  TomTom, the navigational company, had a big display unit at the show.  It was surprising....lot of technology development, for both regular drivers and truckers. Worth ten minutes to look at the displays and what they are doing for future development.

3.  It's held at the Frankfurt Messe, and fairly easy to enter via the subway or S-Bahn system.  Cost?  Fourteen Euro.

4.  The model gals?  It's always interesting to note each car-brand, and the fashion-look that they use for this chat-girls.  Most have memorized forty lines of text.  In the background....are a dozen engineer guys who do most of the big-time talking, if required.

Hint....don't go asking in-depth questions over the cars to these gals.  They really don't know much beyond the tab that they tote around and refer you to the web site.

5.  Food.  Don't eat while there.  There are around forty different stands but it's lousy food.  I ate some fries which were fried up twice over.....they were about as crunchy as you can get fries and still be able to eat them.

6.  Battery cars?  I'd say everyone was trying hard to sell you on electric cars.  Probably forty-percent of the cars on display were electric.

7.  The Renault Twizy was on display....the two-seat battery car.

I'll say this for the car....seating-wise....it's just a fiberglass seat with some light foam.  If you were going to be sitting in it for two hours....you'd be in bad shape. A simple 40-minute ride to work?  Ok.  That back-seat?  It's mostly built for kids, your dog, or some young gal.

 It is fairly cheap, but you have to remember that it's not made to drive on autobahns....strictly state or local roads only.

The price deal? 8,900 Euro for the basic car....with NO batteries included.  Those come under a second contract where you LEASE the batteries and get a maintenance deal.  Distance on the battery?  This is the big negative, in my humble opinion.....roughly 100 km. You can figure it works well in the urban area....with one trip to work and back home.  That's it.

I liked the look of the vehicle, and just wish they had a gas-engine deal instead of batteries.

8.  They had one entire hallway just for parts-makers, which is an interesting twist to things.

9.  Tesla?  No, they weren't there, and that was obvious as well.  They say the show doesn't work well for them.

10.  Hard sell going on for battery cars.  They had that EU chart out on each car and telling you the sad issues with carbon or energy use.  Gas cargs look dismal.  This chart to the right was for the "Jimmy".  It's intended to push you to the green area and aim for a car with A-plus ratings on energy.

Frankly, this doesn't work well for me.

So, I highly recommend the show.....don't allocate the whole day....you just need for 3.5 hours max.  The Mercedes area is crowded.  About 20-percent of the show is out-doors.  Several drink establishments are there....with beer and soda offered.

It'll run until next Sunday.  Opens each day at 9AM.

As for the Chinese guys? That was a curious thing.....there must have been at least 500 Chinese guys walking around....looking at engine parts, undercoating, tire-rims, and seats.  Asking a lot of questions....taking a lot of pictures.  Back in 1979 when I went to my first Frankfurt Car Show...there might have been two Chinese guys there.  

Short School Story

My German wife brought up this story.....from her office.  A co-worker lives across the river (into the Hessen region)....from an industrialized town (I won't say the name).  It's a town of 60,000 to 65,000.

Typically, elementary schools exist in German with the general idea of the first-grade to the fifth grade.  You normally will have a small operation....a director....maybe one to two classes for each level.....to a max of ten teachers (in a typical operation).

So, this community has around four of these elementary operations.

This year, one of the elementary operations was drawn upon and told (because they had the extra space) to accommodate more kids.  So the first-grade opened up around six weeks ago with roughly nearly 300 kids....meaning a dozen classes now exist for the first grade. On top of that....only 25 of those 300-odd kids....are German.  The rest are all immigrant kids.

I sat there in some disbelief.  It's an industrialized area and has drawn a fair number of people for jobs in the local area.  That would make sense. But you just sit there and imagine teachers having 22 immigrant kids with varying German skills....and maybe two German kids...out of the whole class, and just shake your head.

My humble bet is that by spring of next year....the twenty-five-odd German parents in this situation will have found some other living arrangements and moved out of this town.  As for the future?  It would be curious what happens in six to eight years and how this group makes it.  You'd also have to wonder if the teachers and directors were smart enough to hire on some translator-temp folks.

One of the Political Party Creations in Germany

In the midst of this German political season....is the political party known as "der Partei" (The Party).  It's a group of individuals....formed up as a political party in 2004....out of Berlin.  In simple terms....they've lost respect for democracy, the Constitution, and politics in general.  They see it all as theatrics and comedy.  So it's a political joke of a political party and every theme or position is bogus in nature.

Membership?  In terms of actual paying-members....they now number 25,000.  In 2013's election....they got almost forty-thousand votes.  In the 2017 election?  One might take a guess that they will go past the forty-five-thousand point.

In the past year, they surprised people by infiltrating the AfD membership....getting blessed as administrators on forty-odd AfD Facebook pages, and then in one swift move....they took control and pointed all stories on the AfD page over to the Partei's pages.

A growing lack of trust in democracy?  It's a sign of the times.  In twenty years, I suspect that they will be able to pull 300,000 votes from across Germany.

It's one of those things that if it ever got introduced in the US and had some smart guys running it....I think it'd get 10-percent of the US vote very easily.

I won't say that it's stupid or an abuse of society.  It's just that society has seen all of the opera-like devices at work, and thinks that democracy is simply scripted out and fake.

Horses and Horse-Names

I noticed this piece out of IceNews.IS today....over regulation.

There's an association that exists in Iceland....called the FEIF (International Federation of Icelandic Horse Association).

The members met up and drafted this regulation within the system....which passed, and the regulation states that Iceland horses shall NOT have any name other than those registered in the WorldFeng database.

If you came up and wanted a non-WorldFeng name for your horse?  You have to approach the committee which handles names.  They will survey your application.....the name you suggest....and either accept it or forbid you from using the name.

So, like you'd expect....some horse-owner has come up with a name (Mosan) for their horse, and the committee met over this.....then said no.

The owner?  They weren't happy and this has become a legal case now.  The question is....just how much authority does this association have over horse owners in Iceland.  The Justice Ministry?  Well....they've had the complaint for five months and still not made any decision over this.

It is amusing in several ways.

First, if the government has accepted this authority and says FEIF is the absolute authority over horses and horse names.....what's the odds that some association will appear and say they have authority over all cows, all cats, or all dogs....in Iceland?  

Second, what if this one single owner is forced to accept the name regulation (on paperwork), but then refers to their horse in daily matters by the unauthorized name? Hay-time each morning.....the illegal name being used?

Third, who exactly granted FEIF this great status over horse-names?  I'm guessing the Justice Ministry is standing there and asking this question....with no one able to cite any legal structure existing.

Fourth, you have to feel sorry for the young lawyer within the Justice Ministry.  They are getting a reputation as the guy or gal stuck with this package and finding no one within the ministry willing to approve or disapprove the whole application.  You probably are being called the 'horse-guy' whenever you enter an office.

The problem with regulation....is that eventually....you regulate yourself into a corner, and start to look pretty stupid over childish things like this.

Somewhere out there in the rural lands of Iceland....there's some horse-owner contemplating the name....Number Four....for their next colt.  No rhyme or reason....just a name that will get the FEIF folks all disturbed.

The Odds of Another German Election in Four Months?

It's a topic which will not be discussed much on public TV or in the print-media.

Once you wrap up an election....there is a winner.  The winner party is given an ample amount of time (usually four to six weeks) to wrap up a coalition situation.  If you fail with just your party to get fifty-percent of the vote....the coalition deal becomes important.

Typically, you go either to the number two winner, or you go to the number three and four winners....to work up a coalition.

So, lets speak to scenario one (the SPD-partner).  Most people within the SPD Party will tell you that this is a marginalized relationship and hurting the brand-name of the SPD.  Schulz came up yesterday and said if there is a partnership offered....he'll refer it to the internal party system and require a vote.  The odds of a positive vote and a partnership?  No one says much.  My guess is that it'd be fairly close....maybe not passing.

The Green-FDP partnership?  Both would demand certain cabinet posts, and a particular list of laws to support.  The Greens want the no serious changes on immigration....the FDP wants a total rewrite of the immigration law.  It's possible that neither could fit into such a partnership.

Because the Linke Party and the AfD Party will likely get near 21-percent of the vote and neither can be a CDU partner.....the coalition thing might become a problem.

What happens if the partnership deal can't be worked with scenario one or two?  The SPD would then be brought into a room and given a chance.  My humble guess is that they'd approach the Linke Party and the FDP, and talk over a partnership.  Rewriting the immigration law?  The SPD might readily agree with the FDP's demand.  I'm not that sure about the Linke Party folks.

If the SPD failed?  Then, a decision would be made and a new election called for in roughly 90 days (figure around Feb of 2018).  The odds of Merkel and Schulz both being the candidates again?  Probably so....but it's not a guaranteed thing.  The SPD might go and take some weird twist, and pull out another individual.

The odds?  I'd take a guess that it's less than a 10-percent chance that things would get this bad.  But the system is built for this type of scenario.

On Iceland's 'Restored Honor' Law

Yesterday, I essayed the forced Parliament election in Iceland and how this was created by the use of the 'restored honor' law.

So I've spent a fair amount of time reading up on 'restored honor' and how this law was crafted.

What Icelandic people say is that around the late 1930s.....folks were talking about the problem of folks who'd been convicted of crimes and were no longer allowed to vote.  The general public felt that once a guy had served his time in prison....he ought to get his ability to vote back.

The population in Iceland in this period?  Around 120,000 residents.  It's not a lot.  No one ever says how many were affected by the jail-and-vote situation.  One might take a guess that we are talking about dozens.....not hundreds.

So in 1940, this law was crafted with the intended purpose of just giving you your vote back.

Part of this crafting led to the reputation being restored, and you'd have the chance to hold a public position (like mayor).

Clearing your record?  No....it won't do anything with the crime you committed.

To get 'restored honor'?  You fill out a form and identify our past crime.  No one says much over how much information is required.  I doubt if it's more than four pages max.  Then there's the matter of the three letters of recommendation.  Character references....would be an appropriate translation. You find three folks who have some upstanding situation in the community and they will vouch for your character.  Then the whole thing is packaged up and sent to the Justice Ministry.  They review and make a decision.  Once passed by them....it goes to the Icelandic President, and he signs.  It's finished then....you have 'restored honor'.

If you go and look at commentary around Iceland....the public is fairly hyped up over this whole 'restored honor' business.  It is front-page news and the number chat-item on social media.  The odds that the 'restored honor' law will be dumped after this election?  I'd likely bet on some modification occurring, without a complete dump of the law.

The Brussels Story

About every couple of months, there's a curious story over the Schengen Agreement.

Back in the mid-1980s.....a couple of countries sat down and wrote up an agreement to control entry into their combined area.  The legal framework was simple.  You'd provide a passport, and you'd be limited to some time-period.  Today, twenty-six countries make up the Schengen area.

If you are entering the region, you show a passport.  You then have 90 days of access into that combined area.  At the end of that 90 days, you exit, and you must be out for a minimum of 90 days....before you re-enter again.

Some people often think that the 90 day rule isn't enforced.  You can ask around and find numerous people who exceeded the 90 days, and were told in blunt language that they've been put on some 'bad-boy' list and have problems entering now.

Can you avoid Schengen situation?  Some suggest that you could fly into Russia....make it to the Polish border....hop across the border (without any ID confrontation) and just tour Europe for months and months without any issue.  Course, as you fly out of Europe to the US....this topic of when and where you came in....will come up.

So, the story that pops up today comes of Brussels.  In the past week....some Nigab-dressed Dutch citizen had flown out of Tunisia....into Brussels, and was supposed to fly onto the Netherlands.  Two Schengen rules suddenly pop up.

First, the first moment you arrive in the Schengen region.....you have to ID yourself.  You pull out the passport, and they check their database.  It's a simple process....taking a maximum of 60 seconds. In this situation, the Dutch gal wearing the facial-covering of the Nigab....probably thought that this entry-procedure would not occur in Brussels....just at her end-point in the Netherlands. She was wrong.

Around six years ago.....Belgium drafted and passed a law that said you need to present an ID and show your face, when requested by the cops or border-entry people.  The Netherlands doesn't have such a law. There, just an ID presented....is enough.

So we come to problem number two.....she refuses to present her face.  They offered up a private room and even a female border person.....but the answer was no, it's not required in the Netherlands.

So the Brussels authorities said fine....no entry.  She was held for a number of hours, and then put back on a plane for Tunisia.  What happened upon arriving in Tunisia?  One can only assume that she briefly stopped and then tried to find a direct flight to the Netherlands.  I checked this option....well, yeah....there are no direct flights from Tunisia to Amsterdam.  Most of the options either connect via Frankfurt, Brussels, or Charles DeGaulle.

My humble guess is that she kept thinking that they'd back down on the brief removal of the Nigab and just let her pass.  The cost of the return to Tunisia?  It's stuck upon the airline and the lady in question.  My guess is that they will try to inform everyone leaving Tunisia and bound for Brussels in the future of the Nigab rule and ensure it's clear on the entry requirement.