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.