1. Some time today (Monday)....the announcement of the 'levy' will occur....on how much natural gas will run this fall.
In effect, there is to be a natural gas surcharge to occur.....paying some 'extra' Euro into the pot to save the providers. What occurred in early-part of 2022.....the providers didn't grasp the changing nature, and got behind on price escalation. So a number of providers said....if the government doesn't help, they will collapse. The gov't has the solution....in charging an extra bit on your bill.
The expectation? Based on models, I'd take a guess that the minimum per household (expecting it to be 60 square meters)....is between 100 and 300 Euro for the levy charge. Some models are suggesting upwards to 1,000 Euro for the bigger homes (more than 120 square meters).
Yeah, it'll be a pain for some folks to find an extra 300 Euro laying around.
2. If you find a WELT paper this morning (Monday edition), there's a good commentary written by Susan Gaschke....title? "Anyone Who Criticizes Government Policy Is Not An Extremist."
She makes the point that a lot of the coalition chatter going on now is a 'warning' how some people will react this winter over cost levels of natural gas, and that populist movements will use the demonstrations to blame the government. As she notes, if you've pushed the common working-class guy into a corner....why shouldn't he react?
3. Back in the middle of 2021....the Covid drug Paxlovid was hyped up here in Germany....the wonder drug for those suffering from Covid.
Well...this AM, N-24 TV news had a piece and said that there are pallets of the stuff now reaching an expiration date that the German government had purchased. All total? Somewhere between half-a-million to a full-million of packets.
What'll happen? Some quiet 'ceremony' where the pallets are destroyed.
4. N-24 News ran a piece this AM of a insurance-court case....where a young German guy had been disabled in an accident, and because of the injury....he required the services of a hooker. He wanted the insurance company to pay for this. Naturally, the company fought this.
Well...the court issued a finding late last week.....the insurance company does have to pay for the hooker. It now raises up a number of implications.
5. About three weeks ago, I spoke to the significant criticism building up in Frankfurt over the threat levels around the train station in the middle of town. Over the past three decades....the 'quarter' has become a magnet for the drug trade, and probably over 2,000 homeless people reside within a mile of the station.
Well....on Saturday....cops went out in force, and did a 'control' around the neighborhood. Sixty people given charges and paperwork....meaning they have to show up in court. At least nine people had warrants and were taken downtown.
Sending a message? It was both users and dealers that were handled. My belief is that you'd have to run an operation like this every Saturday for two or three months....before they start to move out. But they will simply move to another part of town, unless you moved people into jails or holding units.
Frankfurt is an entirely different city than what it was in the 1970s/1980s. I'm not saying that in a positive way either.
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