21 Nov 2024: Eight German News Stories

 1.  Not front-page news but another Sundhnuksgigar volcanic fissure occurred near the town of Grindavik in Iceland (far SW part of the island).

This  town area is  closed  off....people have not been allowed to come back.

2.  Health insurance company in Hessen reviewed data and projected within the state of Hessen.....33,000 young people are depressed.  Age group?  Five to twenty-four.  Mostly females (more so than males).  No explanation  given.

3.  Ford-Germany talking about cutting 2k jobs in Germany.

4.  Linke Party (far-left) has decided to go with 3 candidates for the Bundestag Chancellor situation in the Feb national elecction.  The three are: Gregor Gysi, Dietmar Bartsch and Bodo Ramelow.  

The idea? The three will split off....doing speeches all over the country.  The belief?  Well....they think they can re-capture interest and get the minimum of 5-percent on the vote.....thus getting seats in the Bundestag.

Odds?  They are fairly well known, and capable of taking back voters  from BSW.  I'd give them better than 50-percent odds of this.  If so...BSW not getting seats, then the party is 'finished'.

I would also say this....Gysi is one of the best 'talkers' in German politics.  

5. Thuringia state coalition agreed  upon: CDU, SPD and BSW.

6.   State of Saxony is experimenting with schools.  New concept.....no grades.   Most all parents criticize the program.

7.  Abortion is will one of the twenty-odd discussions in the election build-up.  Currently, paragraph 218 of the Constitution says only if health  dangers are noted or the victim of a rape requires one.

It would appear both the SPD and Greens are pushing for a new text....that abortion could occur up to the 12th week. The CDU-CSU are pushing to keep the old text in place.

A big deal?   Well....they've copied/pasted from the US election discussion.  The problem I see....German women are hyped-up on birth-control....probably more so  than in the US.   I don't see this topic being a top-ten situation.  

8.  NY Post printed up a story....leaked documents from Germany.   Headline: "Germany prepares for WW3!"

What the documents suggest?  A planned movement of 800,000 troops to be put into place if Russia responds to NATO strikes on its territory.

From what I read....it just reads like a 1980s NATO-Warsaw Pact type plan....that some idiot copied and pasted for some present use.  

Who would make up the 800,000?  I would assume mostly US forces (active duty, NG, reserves)...maybe one-third of the 800k.  The rest from the UK, Spain, France, Germany.

This scaring the crap out of people? I'd say in the past week.....tensions are  way up.  

The Coalition Game in Feb 2025

 To explain the German election in detail.....it's a race really to see who comes in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.

Under current polling....there's no doubt that the CDU-CSU will win...probably in the 32-to-34 percent range. 

Same polling says 2nd place is AfD (the right-wing guys) with 18-percent roughly.

Presently, the SPD, with Chancellor Scholz....is said to be in the 16-percent range.  If they flip over to Pistorius....the belief is  a 5-point gain....getting close to 21 percent.

Then you have the Greens....presently in a crappy situation....around 11-percent.

The Linke, FDP and BSW parties (at least this week) are figured to be 4-percent each....meaning NO seats and no chance to partner up.

Since we know that the CDU-CSU can't partner with the AfD.....under this win situation (Pistorius as the candidate).....there can  be ONLY one single scenario for the coalition...and the SPD is it.

However, lets say that Scholz convinces the party to let him run.  Presently, a CDU-CSU-SPD coalition would not meet the  50-percent requirement.....thus meaning a 3rd partner (obviously the Greens) must be included.

That waters down the CDU-CSU promises and makes for a weaker gov't.

Lets say that both the BSW and FDP manage to get  5 to 6 percent each in this scenario....each might end up as the 3rd partner instead of the Greens.

If you asked Merz of the CDU....he probably would prefer Pistorius to run and just deal with one single partner situation.

If you asked Scholz....he probably would prefer a CDU-CSU win, but with a weaker coalition....with 3 parties in this coalition.

The public stamina at present?  They want change....with Scholz out of the  picture.  They need a finance-friendly crowd.....taking on the VW problems and ceasing the recession.

So it's just as important.....who comes in 2nd, 3rd and 4th. 

My Jaguar Story

 I was stationed in Germany in the mid-1980s.  

There was down in the Heidelberg/Mannheim area....this Army Warrant Officer who'd gone and bought a 10-year old Jaguar.  No one ever spoke of the condition of the car....just that it was a 'beauty' and worth in the $6k range for what he bought.

A week or two into this ownership....problem #1 comes up...with the car going to a shop and around $200 spent.

A month passes, and another maintenance issue pops up....some amount of $500 was spent.

Another month passes, with another issue....in the range of $500 to $600 spent.

At the one-year point, the guy has spent upwards to $9,000 (1984 dollars) on maintenance.

One day....between Frankfurt and Mannheim.....the car stalls on the side of the road.  The guy was in a fit of anger.....just imagining another $100 for the tow, and probably $1k for the garage.

He opens up the gas-cap....there on the autobahn, he puts a rag into the tank opening, and lights it up.

Yep, the car is set ablaze.  Traffic was backed up for miles.  

German fire department comes (with the police).   Basically nothing they can do....other than detaining the Army guy and clearing the junker away.

No one ever said if there was a mental eval on the guy, or if charges came up.  Several folks commented that the fire department folks probably handed the bill to the Army, and they probably deducted something from the guy's pay-check.  

Four Things

 1. I talked about the breakage of cable (2 incidents, Germany to Finland, and Lithuania to Sweden) from a day ago.

Well...about a dozen hours ago....the Danish Navy/Coastal Patrol intercepted a Chinese freighter, with a Russian captain....that they believe was responsible for the breakage.  Ship has been boarded.....little reported after that point.

2.  SPD Party now admitting they have limited open-days on their calendar....to have a meeting and determine who the SPD Chancellor candidate will be for the Feb fed-election.

I would suggest that dragging this out to mid-or-late December is negative for the party.  Scholz still believes he's the top-dog for the candidate position.  

Just in general, no one really expects at this point for the SPD to win (currently in 3rd place on polling).  With Pistorius, they expected a 5-point gain, and safely in 2nd place.  

With the numbers required for a coalition....if Scholz remains the candidate....the SPD won't cross more than 16-percent of the vote, and the CDU-CSU would require a 3rd partner (making this a mess).  

3.  Half-a-meter of snow expected shortly in the states of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg.  

4.  Around 100 current/former upper-level managers within VW....are suing the car company over cuts in salary/pension.

ARD/ZDF In Court

 Public TV in Germany wants a 60-cent per household raise on their fees.....which the states (the 16) have declined.....mostly telling the public TV folks to restructure to save money.

So it got noted today....public TV is taking the case to Constitutional Court (Karlsruhe).  

They want them to 'order' the states to raise the fee.

The text of the Constitution really spelling out the way of handling this?  No.

Three states have openly stepped in and said 'no' to the increase.  Part of this negativity goes back two years ago....where the sub-network....RBB (the Berlin channel) was  caught  up in a massive corruption scandal....trust was lost then.

What could happen?  The court could say 'no' to the raise.....then the public TV folks could start to sell more advertising for the 8:15 PM and later TV programming (something that doesn't happen now).

A majority of Germans now grumbling over public TV?  I'd say more than half have heartburn over the fee business, and the way that the networks function.  

I should note this as well....current statistics  show three-quarters of homes  have some type of streaming video service....up 13-percent over 2021.  

Russia Chatter

 N-TV in Germany did a report on the Ukraine-Russia war....from a different prospective.  They noted....it's not really a 1,000-day war going on.....that Russia has been engaged in some conflict on Ukraine soil for  almost 11 years now (if you count the Crimea business).

The German journalist pointed out....a lot  of Russians quietly point at this, and then silently grumble.  They really don't see the 'gain' but no one wants to say much against Putin.

The fact that a fair sum of Russians have left the country over the last the 3 years?  This is never clear about the number.  Some analysts put the number at 1-to-1.5-million.  Some say it might be closer to 2.5-million.   Some Russians left, and quietly came back 6 months later.....some of those folks even left a 2nd time (you might have to count them twice in some funny way).

It begs the question....even if the war ends....how does Russia restructure its economy and regain economic numbers?

Is This Election A 4-Party Race?

Well....I watched RTL TV this afternoon, and they've done a poll across Germany.

ONLY 4 parties have more than 5-percent of numbers.....CDU/CSU (33-percent), AfD (18-percent),  SPD (16-percent) and Greens (11-percent).  FDP, Linke and BSW were 4-percent or lower.

Shocker?  The recession, economy, and general trends.....lead to a majority focused only upon these four parties.  

BSW?  It's mostly former Linke Party folks and some lefty-disgruntled folks who were former SPD voters.  Beyond that....there's not a lot to attract folks.

I would suggest the race stays mostly in this trend....SPD gains a few points....the CDU likely wins, and this is mostly about how you build a coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD.  

The SPD Choice: Pistorius Over Scholz?

 The odds that the German SPD Party will meet....discuss options, and vote to have Pistorius as the candidate?  I'd now give the odds.....100-percent chance.  No one is eager to enter the election, and run Scholz as the candidate.

On how it changes numbers?  The SPD presently...is sitting at 16-percent (3rd place)....behind the CDU at 33-percent and AfD at 18-percent. The Greens are at 11-percent.  BSW?  At 6-percent.  The rest? All beneath 5-percent...so they don't 'rank'.

With Pistorius....I'd give a five-to-six point rise...mostly taking a point or two from  both BSW and Greens.  This worrying the BSW?  If they fall beneath 5-percent....they get zero seats.  So yeah, I'd  be worried.  I'd also be worried at the Green position....if they fell to  8-percent.

This creating a coalition.....CDU/CSU and SPD?  I'd say that with confidence, and that Pistorius is given vice-Chancellor, and probably the Finance Minister job.  

All of this....changing public perception and staging 2025 as a recovery year?  Yes.  And add to it....the Ukraine is likely to end in some fashion....with Russian natural gas turned back on by the end of 2025.