The Education Story

This is one of those odd German statistics that I point out as having changed the landscape a great deal.

Back in 1970 (25 years after WW II)....roughly eighty-eight percent of German kids finished Haupschulabschluss.  This was basically the 10th grade, and your entry point into a skill-craft or apprentice deal.  In  that same year, roughly ten-percent of German kids finished Mittlere Reife, which was the 10th grade but designed more for achiever-type kids.....meaning that they went on to technical type skills, or more intense skill-craft areas.  Some of these Mittlere Reife kids would go onto Abitur, which was the path-door into college or university.  In terms of pure Abitur-school kids in 1970s graduating?  It was 1.4-percent. 

What you can take out of 1970 was that most kids were going for the bottom-level craft or skill type situation.

By 1980....things had changed. 

The Haupschulabschulss kids had dropped down to 79-percent (9-point drop).  The middle school kids or the Mittlere Reife kids?  They had increased to 17.7-percent...fairly dramatic jump (figure fifty-percent minimum).  Then you come to the Abi-kids, who had doubled in one decade to almost 3-percent. 

By 1990....things had changed even more.

There was a 13-point drop for the lower school kids....the Haupschulabschulss kids were now in the 66.5-percent range.  In the middle school group in Mittlere Reife?  They had grown yet again....adding ten points to 27-percent.  The smarter kids in the Abi-path?  6.5-percent....basically doubling again in one decade.

So you come to 2000.

Around 55-percent of German kids went to the lower school of the Haupschulabschulss route.  The middle school route?  They had gone to 34-percent.  And the university-bound kids in the prep-school environment of the Abi-system?  They had gone to 11-percent.

All of this presents an interesting twist to the job market because almost half the kids are now in the middle or higher school patterns.  For the lower-job fields or careers?  It was apparent already in 2000 that there was a serious problem approaching with not that many kids entering the 'nuts and bolt' traditional job fields which require minimum education.

So on this list of twenty reasons to favor an open door for immigrates and migrants....this shift by German teens back twenty years ago.....triggered this belief that you needed some more folks to enter, who weren't all that hyped up for higher education.  They would fill the lesser jobs.

I know it sounds stupid to suggest this type of view with this logic, but go talk to grocery stores who need just some minimally educated guy to stock shelves, or the wait to serve tables at some bar. 

Battery Car Talk

Focus brought up this interesting topic (at least with me)....over electric cars.  Few Americans realize this, but as you go around Europe...you find various rates.  So in Iceland and some of the Nordic countries....there's fairly reasonable (cheap) electricity.  Germany?  It's in the top five in terms of cost per kWh.  Buying an electric car?  Here, there is a limited and marginal savings on what it'd cost if you drove 600 miles on gas or drove it on battery-power.

The car industry knows this issue, and would basically like for the German government to re-invent this whole method of electrical cost. 

The problem here?  There's this moral obligation that Germany attached itself to....the carbon footprint.  Their view is that they want less power created and that even means less electrical power.  Yet, the electrical car would be a much lesser footprint....if you went this direction. 

The movement toward wind power and solar energy?  This would help, but then you need to help finance this path to the alternate sites, and that means more cost added to make this possible.

I've sat with the German wife and discussed this topic on numerous occasions.  She agrees on the eventual occurrence of us having an electrical car.  She doesn't want to hook that charger up to the grid.  She wants a massive solar cell operation on the roof.  But she's not convinced that the technology and cost are at some prime moment of reality.  Me?  I look at the 150-odd days a year of cloudy weather and wonder how this would work without hooking up to the grid.  Two weeks ago, we actually had like eight days in a row of solid sunshine.  The last four days....solid clouds.

Out of 82-million Germans....I would make a guess that roughly seventy-five million are skeptical of this whole thing and just aren't that sold on battery cars.  It would help if some massive change were to occur with electrical rates, but I just see that happening over the next ten years. 

The Fake 'Instrument' Story

This episode popped up around ten days ago in the Pfalz, in Kaiserslautern.  SWR reported it.

Some local guy got pulled over.  There had been some suspicious action by the guy and cops felt he was on drugs.

So they said here....give us a urine sample.  Cops in Germany can make that request and you have to comply or the license is lost for thirty days minimum.

The guy handles the cup....unzips, and then dumps via his 'instrument'....water into the cup.  He puts the cap on, done.

Note, I said the word....'water'.

The cop notices that it's not a yellow color and stops everything. 

Yep, the idiot had a rubber 'instrument' belt on.  He had filled it with water....instead of asking someone to donate some good urine to their cause.

So the blood test comes now....meth and cannabis noted from that test.

Court action will follow.  No one says much about the loss of the license (probably will be a year). They might have a charge for the fake 'instrument'.  Jail-time?  No.  Just a fine for that and the loss of the license. 

What Happens If the Coalition Talks in Germany Fail?

Well....it's fairly low odds (probably in the five-percent range) that the CDU-CSU-Greens-FDP situation will fail.  Most expect the talks to take all the way to mid-December.  Should we reach the end of December and no coalition has occurred? 

We have a brief situation which would arise and the CDU-CSU team would go to the SPD and suggest a coalition.  My humble guess is that the SPD will agree....only if Merkel steps down and a SPD individual is allowed to be Chancellor. 

Then?  Another election....likely by early-to-mid March.

Merkel running again?  It's hard to say if this would be a positive thing.  With Merkel and Schulz out of the picture...it'd be a fairly different race. 

Gas Versus Diesel Taxes

If you drive around Germany and stop to purchase fuel....you tend to notice that there is a fairly lesser price on diesel per liter.....than gas per liter.

Why?  Back in the early 1990s....a tax incentive was figured up for the government to get 65.45 cents on a liter of gas as tax.....while diesel would be 47.04 cents per liter.  Why?  The government at the time figured that some EU directives coming down the pike and the anticipated switch of drivers to rapid-rail use.....would make the idea of lesser tax on diesel a good idea. 

If you tried to make real sense out of this....it won't add up (my humble opinion).

So it's been this way for thirty-odd years. 

Now, there's a court case brewing where the Green Party wants the rule changed and diesel-fuel taxes raised...perhaps even more than gas.

The German Federal Court of Auditors (BRH) is asking now for a change in the pricing scheme.

If it occurs?  It's just another brick on top of the misery for diesel car owners in Germany.  Most have already lost the value of their car....maybe up to one-third of the value is gone.  New car diesel sales are almost zero.  For the long-distance drivers....the ones doing 150 kilometer per day....using the diesel car and lesser-taxed diesel fuel....it means probably another 500 Euro a year that will go into the government's pocket. 

The 160-Million Euro Story

Generally, by law in Germany, you as a employer have to go and budget/pay the social pension tax for employees.  If you fail in this obligation....the authorities come after you.

So, the story comes today over 'Sozialbeitrage' (pension tax) not being paid by the Catholic Church of Freiburg.

The amount being suggested?  A staggering 160 million Euro.

It's not just years being talked about....it's decades.

The Ordinariat (the regional administration) basically says that a local public prosecutor is now involved.  The folks affected?  Priests, church employees (cleaning people, secretaries, and even gardeners).

This lays across a thousand Catholic Churches in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

What went wrong?  Somewhere about four years ago, there was a changeover of personnel, and the new folks brought in an audit to ensure that everything they did....was transparent.  Well, the audit laid out this issue.  It would appear that this goes back decades, and simply a decision made by someone in charge that they weren't required to make this payment.  The Ordinariat?  Well, you would think that they'd do a yearly review and find this problem.  It should have popped up two decades ago.

As for the money?  The Catholic Church says that they've set aside the money and when the review is done....they will pay what is owed.  My guess is that no penalty will be put upon them.  As for them having 160-million Euro laying around?  I guess they've got the money. 

But this brings up this one odd topic with me.....how many more episodes like this....are sitting out there?  Could there be a thousand business fronts who are failing to pay the social pension tax?  Could there be billions in uncollected taxes sitting out there? 

Crime Story

I often essay about the extent of crime now in Germany, and the inability of the police to get ahead.  Today, Focus carried a short piece concerning Hamburg and their police.

The head of the Confederation of German Criminal investigators (Jan Reinecke) spoke to the issue of manpower for German police and basically said: "We are at the end".....meaning there simply isn't enough manpower to do the job.  He points out that it's across the board...robbery, organized crime, capital crime, etc. 

The sophistication involved?  In some ways, the crime element has skipped a generation and gotten into various things that you just didn't expect.  It's like bringing up the ATM machines which are blown up daily around Germany now.  A decade ago, they were non-existent.  Various gangs have the technique down and you could easily rake in a million a year with three guys hitting the ATMs.

In my local area, the fake-cop routine is now down to a daily event.  In my local area from a couple of days ago...guy shows up at a door showing a badge and saying he was there to 'audit' or check the fire alarm within the house.  Something set off the German occupant and they denied them entry.  Regular cops don't ever perform fire alarm checks.  Other than the regular cops writing up the fake-cop report, it'll just get filed.  Next week, the same trick will be used again.

I noticed out of local news this morning....some 85-year old German had a phone call from the fake-police....telling her that her money in the bank was going to be compromised.  So they instructed her to go down, and remove the 32,000 Euro and a 'special' policeman would come by her house to protect her money.  A bank clerk asked enough questions to finally get it out of the old gal....that she was being compromised.  Cops can file the report and write up an article for the paper, but getting at the gangs that do this kind of work is near impossible.

Three expensive vehicles were stolen in the Wiesbaden area over the past couple of nights.  One of them....ended up being spotted while the guy was refueling on the east side of Dresden (heading into Poland).  Cops gave pursuit and ended finding it abandoned near-by in a forest.  The guy got away.  Other than writing the report.....there is little to expect on identifying the guy involved, or finding the two other vehicles.

All of this leads me to the opinion that German trust in law enforcement is slowly eroding. Everyone is hyped up to build more security into their houses and their lives.  There just isn't enough manpower to remedy this situation....even with the 10,000 extra cops that the CDU/SPD coalition promised up in the last six months.  And the sophistication of criminals now in Germany is requiring an entirely different view of prevention. 

Why So Much Division in Europe?

When you look at various regions trying to separate themselves out of their nation-states in Europe....the question ought to come over why.

When you look at most countries in Europe (the bigger ones)....they were based on a language situation, and little else when they were incorporated as they look today.

But there's this odd problem that popped up in various countries (Belgium, England, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, etc).....as nations grew through the 1980s and 1990s....it was apparent that various regions made money, which turned into tax revenue.  And various regions of a country had marginal industry, tourism, agriculture and services....which translated into....well, lesser tax revenue.

Leadership in countries did this interesting thing with the socialism idea.  They had this big pot of money and they leveled the playing field across the country.  Everyone got roads, bridges, educatioal funding, and people services.

After a while, with economic information being more developed, people started to realize that various sections of a country....say with 20-percent of the population....were funding forty-percent of the national tax revenue pot of funding.  In a country like Spain....there were fifty provinces.  Four of these....make up what is called Catalonia today (Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona). That one region carries an enormous contribution of tax revenue that covers the rest of Spain (223 billion Euro a year flow from Catalonia to Madrid).  That's about 20-percent of the national spending. 

Having this economic information available for the public to read....makes for a very uncomfortable situation.  Most people in the higher revenue-making regions now ask questions.  Why do they have to support or sponsor lesser income regions?  On top of that, various political agendas are being created which actively pokes at this issue, and makes the political folks sweat over these discussions.

The politicians back at the central government?  Well...they'd just like to 'gift-out' everyone and get appreciated.  The idea that you'd ask about more services for your state or region....than another state or region....because you put more money into the pot?  Well....you are making this a bit complicated.

If any of these attempts are successful?

Now we get into the beef of the whole discussion.  Let's say that four of the most norther provinces of Italy (the wealth-making section of Italy) went off and separated into one single nation.  What remains is roughly 75-percent of what you see in Italy today.  Wealth-wise?  They'd only be able to generate about sixty-five percent of the income that this one northern region is making.  It would be difficult to hand out all of the fine wealth-redistribution money that typically goes out each month.  Within three or four years, you'd have this remainder of the nation looking at lesser revenues and unable to balance out the the system that they were used to enjoying. 

Around all of Europe?  There are probably a dozen regions which know their wealth potential and seem to be frustrated over the lack of return tax revenue into their state. Fixing this?  Just about impossible.