The Health Ministry stood up today and announced a new concept. They would create a thousand health-kiosk stations across Germany.....more or less to handle changing of bandages, checking blood pressure, and offering some health advice.
Gimmick? Well....it would be mostly run by nurses and paid for by the federal government. Placement? They'd end up in the most rural places....small villages in the middle of nowhere.
No one much says the cost of this, or how it'd be funded.
It's an odd story....out of Focus this PM.
So it goes this way....the Minister of Economics of Germany (Habeck, Greens), who is also the vice-Chancellor....came up with this suspicion of sensitive information getting into the hands of Putin and the Kremlin.
Reaction? Well....Habeck called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the German FBI guys) onto two officials from the Federal Ministry of Economics. And there lies this idea that they are spies for Putin.
So far? The government just says they have an 'emotional attachment' to Russia. There's some visits in the past, but it's just odd how they worded this statement.
What'll happen now? Probably six months of investigation and then some court case.
Here's the thing though....if you started browsing and really digging....there might be forty agents of the Kremlin.....in some type of government job, or associated with various members of the three major parties. It's stuff that could destroy a government if you dug deep and found a number of people like this.
Now? I think Habeck and the whole upper level will be suspicious of people and order reviews.
On the positive side? They didn't find the Chinese, French, British, or American spies in the government (just being sarcastic).
Lets say that I (as a company) choose to make a product, and after all the research/development, taxation on the property/company, and estimate on man-hours (with cost), I can make the product for X.
Then I work up profits, to figure bonus activity, profit for the stock-holders, the advertising and essentials for a company to exist at this level, and the situation is 40-percent over X.
Then these gentlemen come over, who are not into business or economics, but strictly politicians.
They look at things and decide that you can't do this 40-percent over X, and so therefore.....they intend to tax you (probably in the range of a quarter of the 40-percent over X).
What would likely happen next?
In most cases, you'd (as the CEO/board) would go and move either the headquarters itself....out of the country, or make the radical suggestion of taking the jobs for production, and relocating them to another country with a lesser cost threshold. This means the genius folks who felt you couldn't do the 40-percent over X....loses jobs. New companies to make up for those lost jobs? Well....no. No one would be that stupid.
I'm not saying this would occur on a massive scale, but all you need is one company out of twenty to react, and trigger lesser confidence in producing or selling a product out of that country.....to cause some concern.
So to suggest this type of gimmick in the upstart of a recession? It makes for great headlines, and the general public gets all hyped-up about taking that profit away. Then six months later, they wake up to realize their company is downsizing....to make the product in land far away. The politician can't do much but stand there and admit they chased them out.
Countries that would really benefit out of this scenario? India, China, etc.
The excess profit chatter is something that you need to stand back and admire the landscape upon....because there are always options to make products elsewhere, and cheaper.....lessening regulation 'woes'.
1. Today is the last day for discount gas. If you drive around, various stations have put cones or tape....telling the public they are out of fuel to sell. I'm not saying it's a national crisis....but it's just an odd feature of German life, where you might spend an hour driving around....to find one station with fuel to sell today. The 30-Euro-cent discount ends at midnight.
2. Updated German inflation rate reported this AM? 7.9-percent at this point in 2022. No matter where you go....the kino, the pubs, or the pizzeria....you do a cost analysis of what it was a year ago.
3. The EU and German Economic 'political-bosses' for the national level business this AM....say that a levy-or-tax will exist for companies shortly, if they make excess profits. Who will decide excess? Well....they will (the politicians). You can just sense....things will go south as some companies choose to lessen production and trigger a crisis....to make a point about their production, and their profits.
1. A fair number of German houses that are non-solar paneled....will go into crisis mode because of the heat/electrical cost that occurred over the winter. Virtually every single solar dealer/install team.....will be working seven days a week from April to December of 2023....trying to install a massive amount of panels.
2. I think backyard wind-generators will be introduced, and get immediate negativity by neighbors over the 'hum'. These units, costing less than 5,000 Euro, will become a major topic of discussion.
3. Finally, a number of newer homes without fireplaces....will be reviewed to add a outdoor chimney, and a wood-heating unit somewhere in the house.
All of these will lead to most homes in the winter of 2023 using one-third to 50-percent less natural gas.
It would be fifty years ago this past week....that the 1972 Olympics opened in Munich.
Last night, the German government announced that it was funding a 'victim-fund' for Israel folks who were in some ways of the terror attack that occurred.
Amount? 28 million Euro.
Fifty years later? Well....yeah.
No data but I would suggest that more than half of the participants are passed on by this point.
Front-page news? I'd say it's on page two or three of most German newspapers.
How big a deal was the attack, on the minds of Germans? For roughly a week, it ran as absolute number one news, and just about everyone over the age of fifteen at the time....have a clear memory of the incident. If you mentioned it today to folks in the 18 to 30 age group...I doubt if you could find more than a quarter of them remember 'something' of what happened.
The terror incident being connected to the German Red Army? Yes. No one much argues over that point, and if you get into a discussion....a few people will ask if the East German Stassi (Secret Police) might have engaged in planning for this.
It was an interesting story highlighted by HR (my regional public TV network for Hessen). So, since 1951.....the weather guys have counted the number of hours per day....of sunshine. Yes, sunshine records.
This summer (June to 30 August) is now labeled as the most sunny period of Hessen, and German history, since 1951. A total of 857 hours of sunshine for the 3-month period.
Previous record? 2003, with 814 hours of sunshine.
Relating this also to rainfall? Well....Hessen also had only 85 liters of rain per square meter for the same period. Normal average? 222 liters. For drought-chatter, it's pretty dismal.
The positive? If you had a solar panel situation....you probably had a all-time record of energy creation.
What can you attribute the sun-days to? Well....high-pressure systems brought in limited clouds, and stayed for days at a time. On at least two occasions, we had some weird African 'dust-cloud' that came
1. Yes, the dollar and Euro are now 1 to 1. How many years? It's probably been 18 years since you had such buying power with the dollar.
2. Russian natural gas flowing through Nord Stream I? No. As of yesterday, it was halted as the Russians say they are on a maintenance episode. When it comes back on? No one says much. If the Russians wanted to turn up the pressure....they'd delay this by a entire month.
3. Today is the last day of the 90-day discount gas price routine (30 Euro cents off from the taxation business). This AM, E10 fuel sells per liter at 1.84. Tomorrow morning....it'll be 30 cents added....hitting 2.14 Euro minimum (if not more).
4. The mandate that was supposed to start in the fall for home-office (forced upon companies even if they had no Covid)? Halted. The FDP Party pushed the Minister of Labor (Heil, SPD) to dump that idea on mandates.
5. The RBB (public TV for Berlin) board has met and agreed....NO more bonus activity for any employee. Of the dozen-odd public TV networks.....they were the only one doing bonuses.
