1. Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, SPD candidate for the German Constitutional Court....has decided not to run for the Federal Constitutional Court.
Lot of drama built up over this, and there's some bad blood by SPD members over how this ended.
2. Adidas, the tennis-shoe maker, is leaving behind a union contract. To stay competitive....they say this move has to occur.
3. The VW Touareg (SUV) is to be discontinued.
I sat and read through the piece. The journalist had spent a week or two in Germany this summer, and used the Bahn (railway). So, it was pretty critical (negative). What was said...it's not on time (roughly 40-percent of the time)....things don't work as advertised, and Germans grumble about it.
Since 1978, off and on, I've used the Bahn a good bit. Yeah, at least a quarter of the time....it's late (but by late, I mean 15 to 20 minutes).
The last time I really needed it to work....I had tickets to a show in Hamburg, and had booked 1st class seats out of Frankfurt....intending to get to the hotel six hours prior to the show. Well...the train got cancelled, and seats were near impossible on the replacement train. They still got me there three hours prior to the show, but it was a very stressful situation.
Yeah, the toilets are broke around 10-percent of the time.
Yeah, the stations always seem to have druggies around.
Yeah, the App works but depending on how you select a ticket....it could be five different price schemes.
Yeah, the AC in summer marginally works, and in some cases....you might need to exit every 30 minutes to seek relief from the heat.
But here's the thing.....except for Japan and Switzerland.....no one else exceeds the German standards.
Last night, I watched a 45-min piece off ZDF(Channel 2, public TV here in Germany), where the topic was fake honey.
I would recommend a viewing.
So, to the basic subject....some folks in China have figured out how to manufacture fake honey....at a lower cost, and sell it as legit honey. In the process....they try to import it into Germany.
ZDF spent a fair amount of effort to tell the story....which surprised me at the level of journalism.
1. The head of the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association has said that there's a massive shut-down coming of a number of pubs/bars in Germany....over losses.
Part of this is the mess left from Covid.....part going toward a lack of employees.
2. Can of Espresso coffee beans now going for 20 Euro? Yeah. It's getting awful expensive to even brew your own espresso.
3. Number of RVs/camping trailers....now doubled in Germany since 2017.
4. I sat reading a piece on Focus yesterday, and they noted from a national survey....ONLY TWO percent of Germans live what is a completely health-conscious lifestyle. Meaning? 98-percent eat a unhealthy food situation, drink badly, fail to exercise at the right level, and have stress of some type.
5. The Stuttgart-21 project (taking years to complete) has a fair amount of financial pain left, and the Bahn folks are being handed the final bill (by court order).
The total bill? Around 11-billion Euro. Based on estimates....around 4.5-billion Euro will be handled by the city, and state. The rest? 6.5-billion Euro....is a Bahn problem.
If you aren't familiar with Stuttgart-21? Basically.....in the 1980s....the city (run then by the SPD)....agreed that the rail-system leading into the center of town....was devised wrong (going back over 80 years). So they spent a decade working on a plan, which grew in size/character. A ton of extras were added, and instead it taking 3-to-4 years....it's taken around 20 years to complete.
Will the Bahn pay? No....they will go to the Bundestag and basically say....pay us the money, or we'll have to improve ticket costs by x-amount. In the end....the tax-payers of the nation of German....will pay for Stuttgart-21.
6. Interesting statistic from yesterday....ONLY 10-percent of German population is UNDER age 25. Migration is now a must-occur situation....for the pension program in 30 years to survive.
7. Berlin-City statistic....twice as many migrants are LEAVING Berlin-City....as arriving. Meaning? Some reach a level of realizing Berlin might be a bit too much to handle.
The city has around 6,000 'bunks' in their residence system.
8. German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil is visiting Washington this way, and talking trade. Oddly enough.....the EU expressed anger about the SPD politician's comments.
Just in general....several German politicians are hyped up (not happy)about the EU 'deal' with Trump. The flip side to this? The EU says openly there had to be a 'deal', or all hell would break loose.
9. The city of Hanover is appealing to the German federal gov't....that it could take in 20 Palestinian 'kids' (figure 750,000 in the Gaza Strip).
At least four other German cities are looking into similar 'help'. Same story....20 kids each. Now, if they could only find 37,500 other cities with similar helpfulness.
10. For June and July....massive unloading of LNG into Germany.
11. Lot of chatter going on for the Deutschlandticket (1 monthly ticket for bus/rail travel). The federal government and state governments are putting in 1.5-billion Euro for 2025....to keep the ticket at 58 Euro per person. The association of cities want some long-term deal on the table....to keep it affordable. Lot of feelings that it'll escalate to 65 Euro or more for next year.
1. Lot of talk going on within CDU-CSU-SPD coalition.....massive reform likely coming for welfare and pensions. 'Hard line' is used over and over.
Burger-Geld (the welfare program) amounted to 9-percent of the total gov't budget in 2024....roughly 47-billlion Euro.
It would appear that if you are collecting welfare, without working....there's going to be intense pressure applied to force you into a job.
2. Gov't statistics released......within Germany, 200 packs of wolves....1,600 total wolves in the country.
Talk is getting blunt....wolf hunting likely to be approved by the end of 2025. Limited hunting to be allowed in 2026....my humble belief. They aren't saying the number of permits....but I would imagine at least 100 minimum per year to be issued.
3. CSU Party pushing hard to lessen welfare payments to Ukrainians in Germany. Based off a slide I saw last night....around 20-percent of the total sum of welfare, is hooked to Ukrainians in Germany.
4. The deportation flight to Afghanistan, which departed from Leipzig in mid-July, carried 81 folks.....3 of which were housed in psychiatric hospitals.
This started up a discussion over if it's right to take mental cases out of Germany.
The curious thing...as folks enter Germany, there is no mental eval to determine if you are crazy or sane. So if the gov't accidentally discovers 3 years later that you are a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia....there's not much they can say or do.
5. In this judge nominee case brewing....yesterday, a 86-page report was published....where plagiarism hunter Stefan Weber made new allegations against Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf (the SPD candidate for the German supreme court). He argues in the news piece that the husband of Brosius-Gersdorf....likely "authored almost or entirely his doctoral thesis."
So it's not only the wife, but the husband as well.
Pretty odd situation brewing.
I would offer the humble observation....if you opened up 10,000 thesis projects and sent AI to audit them....more than a quarter would have 'problems'.
1. Malte Arnsperger wrote up a political piece for Focus yesterday, which has been on my mind. So the object? There's chatter in a couple of German cities (major urban sites) of bringing Palestinian Gaza 'kids' to Germany....in some kind manner to 'save'.
Note, they haven't said adults...just kids.
The CDU-CSU-SPD folks....they haven't walked into this discussion yet, and frankly....I think 90-percent of them would rather not engage upon this, and start giving happy feelings about where this would go. If this got traction? Well....those 'evil-AfD Party' folks would engage, and it'd probably pump up their ratings another percent or two.
Who would 'manage' such a thing? Unknown. Money for support? Unknown. Accommodations? Unknown. Distribution forced down to each state? Probably. Mostly a lot of unknowns where this idea would lead to.
Worst case scenario? Well....kids 14 and under? Best estimate is around 750,000 total existing in the Strip population. I'm pretty sure no one will sign up for that kind of number, or even for 100,000. I would offer an assumption of 10,000 in this mix.
As for heavy questions (with no answers)....I would imagine the AfD adding a minimum of two points onto their polling.
2. SPD Party chatter over the weekend.....they want new taxes for the 'super-wealthy' of Germany. They didn't clearly state the 'line' but figure there's room to discuss this with the CDU-CSU.
3. Ulf Poschardt wrote a piece for WELT....over the topic of public TV reform in Germany....saying that the system cannot really be reformed, and leans mostly toward the Green Party and left. A one-sided viewing? That's the business model and the general path of things.
I hate to suggest this.....but already in the early 1960s....some folks felt this way, and that was the creation vehicle for ZDF to be created (Channel 2). Once created (with state money)....lawsuits occurred, and the court said the way that the Constitution read....ONLY one network can exist in Germany (Channel 1, ARD), and then gave ZDF to ARD to manage.
4. Because of the warm/dry spell in the spring....bee operations are on a massive up-swing....best year in Germany in 15 years, for honey.
5. Business report via HR...here in my state of Hessen.....cool/wet spell for the past four weeks....have damaged outdoor cafe/pub and restaurant industry....major losses on income.
I was at a Asian restaurant on Friday....covered by umbrellas, with showers/wind. It was brisk....but just warm enough to sit and eat dinner.
6. First six months of 2025.....asylum applications at 70,000 here in Germany. That's half of what existed in the first half of 2024.
1. INSA poll done. AfD Party again at 25-percent. CDU-CSU at 27-percent. SPD at 15-percent.
2. 17,600 Russians got tourist visas into Germany so far for 2025. Leads to a lot of questions.
3. German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs....Katherina Reiche...is calling for the removal of internal barriers in the EU single market (just itself).
The CDU politician did a interview for BILD...saying that the total burden of these barriers existing today....44 percent. In case you were wondering....that's THREE times the Trump tariffs.
4. Presently, in 2031....the German retirement age will 'hit' (67). So there's talk of pushing it further up...the suggestion is 2050 to have it at 68, and by 2070 up to 69.
So if you were a 5th-grader in a German environment today....you would be looking at the extra year of work for 2050.
Lot of Germans looking at this and physical requirements...shaking their heads. Garbage-men, car mechanics, and roofers....would never make it.
