The 1,500 Euro Story

 I was looking over AM news out of the state of Bavaria today....news piece on the activist protest trend and the glue episodes.  

Munich city government is now saying that a standard fee will be charged if you participate in a protest, with glue as an element, and the police react.

Cost?  1,500 Euro per person.

One single 10-minute protest, with glue in the mix.....you get detained long enough to get your ID and a summons to appear in court.  The judge will see you probably in four to eight weeks, and then hand you the fine. 

How they arrived at 1,500 Euro?  Unknown.  It is a nice round number and I suspect that they believe it's an amount to discourage you from juvenile behavior.  I'm not really convinced of that changing your behavior.

Another factor, which ought to be asked by journalists....what jobs do any of the activists hold?  In the past month, I saw an interview where two talked of their lives now.  One had quit his job to be a full-time activist, and a second had quit studies at some university.  Neither had a real income and it begged questions over who was funding their food, beverage or lifestyle.

What I suspect will happen?  As the fines are issued, and paid....some gov't intelligence guy will follow the path of the money....to find the foundation or group behind it.  I have some belief that it goes past the German border.

This 1,500 Euro fee to become common?  I would suggest that by the end of 2023....most all states in Germany will have a similar fee.  By 2024, I also expect the fee to bump up into the 2,000 to 2,500 Euro range.  This will go with the logic that if it's so easy for you to hand over 1,500 Euro....it ought to be easy to hand 2,500 Euro over as well.  

Now, if you were asking me....how many episodes occur each week in Munich to estimate the 1,500 Euro gimmick?  Following the news reports....I'd say a minimum of one per day (Mon-Fri only, they don't seem to do much on weekends), with five people per average on each incident.  So you should figure a formula of 5 x 5 x 1,500 per week....meaning 37,500 Euro a week of 'revenue-fine' generation.  

Yeah, if they kept the trend for a year, it'd be well over a million Euro.  

And if they don't pay?  Usually, the German court system will send a guy to value your 'estate' (like your Nintendo game set, your laptop, your stamp collection) and seize your stuff.  In the case of these guys/gals....I just don't think they have much of a personal 'estate' to take from.