Thursday, March 14, 2024

14 March 2024: Ten German News Stories

 1.  Bus strike in my town (Wiesbaden).....yesterday, today and Friday.  Stressing the locals.

2. Focus pointed out....if you go out and have what is a traditional German breakfast at a cafe...everything with coffee....it is almost 20 Euro now.  

3.  Just curious....there are two Red Army Faction guys that the police are searching for.  From what the police discovered.....the one guy...Burkhard Garweg....before the search got 'hot'....ran a forgery workshop. Yeah, he was helping to train people on the art of forging.

4.  Interesting statistic....more E-bikes are now bought over non-battery (normal) bicycles in Germany.

5.  For 2023, VW now says it cleared 18-billion Euro PROFIT.  That's around 13-percent more than 2022

6.  N-TV did a piece yesterday talking about influencers on social media.  If the person you watch is an 'expert' on money (so they claim).....the odds are (by true experts)....that 94-percent are incompetent on money and finances.  Pretty wild discussion.  

From an American prospective with finance podcasts....I'd agree that about fifty percent are giving you crappy advice.  

7. Poland's President is telling the rest off NATO....stop calculating on a 2-percent number to devote to defense....start calculating on 3-percent.  German leadership will go nuts over that idea.

8. German weather guys talking about a vortex change....with a late cold front hitting in April (call it a Arctic blast).  I will say from New Years on....it's been an awful mild winter, and my heating bill will  probably be one-third less than normal.  I haven't put salt out on the sidewalk since late November.

9.  This whole Taurus missile discussion got dragged out in the Bundestag yesterday.  Scholz had to go and defend the position of saying 'NO' to handing the missiles to the Ukrainian army.

Just some humble analysis.....this is a bunker-buster type missile.  You wouldn't use it on bridges, tanks, or fuel depots (economically, it makes no sense to waste a million-Euro missile on small targets).  Are there that many bunkers in the eastern side of Ukraine that the Russians operate?  I just don't see the logic.  But for Scholz....his defensive position is inviting criticism by various other parties.  

10.  RTL-TV will be running a new show called 'The Golden Bachelor'.....meaning they have some German guy in his 70s....with eligible ladies 60 and over.  Most of the past shows have been fairly sensual/sexual....so it'll be interesting how this sells.

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