30 Mar 2026: Germany: 3 Things

 1.  I'll just say it....from a non-German prospective...this Ulmen-Fernandes situation/scandal/exposition/affair....over a two week period....seems to be in a hype-up media (news) 'bubble'.

I suspect if you drag this up with a hundred working-class Germans....roughly 50 to 60 of them can't really explain the nature of the situation,  And if you did package this into a 45-minute news-docu-type deal to explain the fourteen-odd details of the situation....they'd lose interest after eight minutes.

2. For about ten days, we've had this whale-problem in the Baltic Sea region of Germany.  

The whale originally got so near up on the beach....that  he lodged himself on a sandbar, and was 'stuck' (he couldn't wiggle out).

Germans....naturally good rescue folks....decided they could help him.  A crew of  characters....some science folks and some engineer types....got a vessel to dig around the sandbar and eventually got him 'loose'.  So they thought....now, he'll swim off to safety.

Well...for a brief period....maybe eight to  twelve hours, he lingered around and got sand-barred again. 

Again,  they pushed him out.

They've noted yesterday....he just ain't progressing out to sea. 

Oddly, they haven't named him (something Germans do when they are hard-wired to linger on the animal). 

3.  Germany has a Construction Ministry.  Over the weekend...the minister in charge suggested that at the federal level...they should be become a 'developer' (buying, designing,  and  hiring up construction teams to build the houses/apartment buildings).

On paper, it sounds like a marvelous idea.

The history of local, state and federal type projects?  Pretty dismal.

Q-and-A: German Public TV

 1.  Monthly cost presently?  18.36 Euro a month....doesn't matter how many TVs or radios you have in the house.

2.   Locations of Channel 1 (ARD) and Channel 2 (ZDF)?  ARD  - Hamburg.  ZDF - Mainz.

3.  Is there any real difference on news content?  Personal opinion....if you watch both....it's about sixty-percent of the same stuff....told slightly different. 

4. How many Germans watch ARD prime news (8 PM) on average?  Around 9.5-million....out of 84-million residents.

5.  Are there Germans who go out of their way NOT to watch ARD or ZDF?  Curiously, this topic has been studied....around 5-to-5.5-million are dedicated to watch no programming whatsoever. 

6.  Does ARD or ZDF have an 'edge' over the other?  Oddly....data suggests a 2-percent edge to more ZDF viewers....over ARD viewers.  Reason?  ZDF has a fair amount of soap-opera cop shows and  mountain-doctor-clinic shows around 6 PM to 8:15 PM, and older viewers are more consumed to watch this.

Forced To Travel

 The wife wants a week in Berlin for end of April.  So....ok....I did the price comparison to get there.

1st-class ICE train....there and back....880 Euro for two.  My trust in ICE getting me  there and back with NO issues?  Near 10-percent.

2nd-class Lufthansa mid-afternoon tickets...380 Euro for two (round-trip)...flying out of Frankfurt. But they wanted 70 Euro per bag...per person (that was my only grumble).  

Each has a assigned risk factor.  

You have to get to the Frankfurt airport...on a Sunday.  My wife is anti-taxi, and normally anti-bus/tram.  Once there....you have to do the bag-drag....then pass security.

The railway there?  You have to assume the local train will 'work' but some screw-up on ICE will occur. The snack-wagon on ICE?  Crap. 

Lufthansa or Bahn strike?  Well...you factor in this problem as well.

If you rode the train into Berlin....then you have the broke escalator issue going on, and the crime scene at the station  to contend with (same or more so....for Frankfurt).

I told the wife....would be a lot simpler to fly into Egypt.

29 Mar 2026: Germany: 5 Things

 1.  Since day one of this Christian Ulmen/ e-wife Collien Fernandes 'affair'....if you start counting....there are probably over one-hundred odd factors.  No matter who is telling the story....they all tend to leave about 90-percent of these factors out. 

German prosecutor attempting to take a Spain case....back into Germany and bring  Ulmen into court?  Mostly a bluff  (at this point).

2.   Starting 1 Apr...Heavy smokers will be 'entitled' to a free annual lung cancer screening examination.

Active and former smokers aged 50 to 75 can undergo a low-dose computed tomography (NDCT) scan every 12 months. 

Free?  Well....it'll be covered by your standard German statutory health insurance.

My gut feeling....lot of folks are going to be given negative news over their future health condition.

3.  Also starting 1 Apr....the Federal Ministry of Transport launches a new funding program for electric vehicle charging stations in apartment buildings. 

Around 500 million euros are available to install wallboxes, grid connections, and other technical equipment. 

Now....will apartment building owners want to do this?  I suggest they will review hazard reports and increased insurance costs....with a majority declining the hook-up.

4.  A fire broke out overnight in Kehl, near the border with Strasbourg.  Around 3AM.....Disco/lounge...club with 750 partygoers was on fire.

Shocker?  Every single person made it out.

Nuke Energy Discussion

 In the past week....Germany's Energy Minister commented: 'The phase-out of nuclear power was a huge mistake.'

So I'll lay out the whole story....as simply as I can.

Around  1990, as DDR ended....Kohl's people went to find East Germans who could fit into the CDU strategy....for political motives.  They eventually came to the conclusion....Merkel was 'it'.  She was invited for a coffee....Kohl had found his 'Eastie', and history is concreted  down.

The job for CDU bureaucrat Merkel?  Well.....she was a scientist...so the Energy Minister was the obvious job.

What she discovered  over the next year.....Germany's plan to bury nuke-waste....was not really supported by any state, and most science-minded folks felt it was 'wrong'. The path?  You'd have to eventually take down the nuke energy sector.  

To make up for this?  You'd run coal-plants, bump up solar/wind, and have some reserve energy via cheap Russian natural gas.

Kohl goes away....the SPD runs things  briefly.....Merkel builds her path to the Chancellor-job.

In this decade...it's decided that coal  is 'evil'.

Eventually....a massive amount of suffering funds (identified in the 30-to-35 billion Euro range) is put up....to shut down the coal 'pits' and coal energy sector....to retrain workers (particularly in the NW part of Germany).  But don't worry....wind/solar are bumped up, nuke energy still flows, and cheap Russian natural gas is covering the end of coal-energy.

Fukushima occurs.  Over a 2-to-3 year period....it's decided that evil-nuke-energy must end. There's some talk of keeping two or three around....but that plan gets dumped.  Don't worry....wind/solar get bumped up and cheap Russian natural gas covers things.

Then the war happen....with evil-Russia and Ukraine.  That strategy craps out  for natural gas.

So what you have is wind/solar, and on a really bad day....you go to the EU grid, and consume/buy power from  France  or 'friends'....at a hefty rate.  That grid-power....being nuke or coal?  Its best not to  bring that up.

So cherries on this cake?

Well....Bavaria (the state) would like to have a nuke-plant (or two)....the federal gov't said 'NO'....only they can authorize such.  Why does Bavaria want the nuke plants?  They realized that power requirements for industry are expanding.

More?  Austria has designed their nuke-energy burial sit....deep down....about five miles from the German border (Bavaria).....yeah, and this made the Germans angry.

More?  More and more of the high-energy consumer companies are reviewing the idea of exiting Germany....for cheaper grid countries.

Home price for power (2026) in Germany?  Around 37 Euro cent per kWh.  Some folks have exceptional long-term deals at 24  to  27 cents.

Homes hooked up for solar?  German authorities at the end of 2024 said it was 15-percent, with expectations by 2030 of 25-percent.  The problem to dispose of panels?  Yet-to-be-brought-up......but it'll shock some folks when the recycle yard starts quoting 200 Euro per panel.

It's not a happy story over what happened to nuke energy, and it's fairly amusing to look at German neighbors who didn't fall for the 'trap'.

The Trump 'Leave-Germany' Chatter

 A Brit newspaper brought up the topic....some insider to the Trump talk.

The story goes......Trump's team are evaluating removing troops from Germany, and re-establishing them in either Romania or Poland.

So I sat and pondered over the idea.

From a German prospective....there's two groups eyeballing this. One group knows  that the Pfalz state is highly dependent on the money spent....with the Wiesbaden and Stuttgart areas....lesser  concerned.  On the second group....they are highly anti-US and would  like for the troops to be gone. In general....I'd say sixty-percent of German society don't care one way or another.

K-Town/Landstuhl? Financially.....if the US totally left....it's a massive 'hole' that would exist, and you can figure a full decade of  suffering to be occurring.

As for leaving?   Poland would be a fifty-fifty situation....with some elements of society very much supporting the arrival, and another group disliking it.

My general prediction?  The Air Force only has three elements left in Germany....Spangdahlem and Ramstein.  The wing at Spang could easily be moved into Poland....figure about four years to build the base.  Ramstein?  Different story....you have the medical facility (yet to be completed), the  C-130 wing for cargo, and the HQ's.  

Ramstein since the 1980s....have built a  massive structure, and tens of billions invested for the extra-long haul.

The next-war mentality?   Today....it's totally geared toward China/Taiwan.

So I suspect....at the end of this review....Spang's element moves to Poland, and Ramstein remains 'mostly-as-is'.

On the Army business?  Some parts of what exists could easily move to Romania or Poland.

Germans grumbling?  Some might  grumble, but the majority will not care, or actually support the 'end'.

28 March: Germany: 5 Things

 1.  Over the past month....if you watch economic news in Germany....the chemical industry is telling the Merz coalition.....they can't afford the grid-price on electricity.

The various hints being given?  Rather than resolve the grid 'mess'....there's some suggestion going on....where the general public would subsidize electricity prices for the chemical industry. 

Adding another reason for  more taxes?  Yeah.

My solution? Give up producing chemicals in Germany, and ship all production to China.  If you ask me....this was a designed strategy to trigger public discontent, and ship jobs overseas.

2. Federal Council meeting on hunting of wolves to be allowed....from yesterday.  Expected to be 'permits' shortly.

3.  Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece have formed what I'd call a 'deportation coalition'. They are careful on wording but they want a couple  of 'hubs' to  serve as migrant deportation return  centers.

Who are the hubs?  I'd imagine 'dirt-poor' countries that can be enticed.  

Looking at the five....I'd take a humble guess that together....they have in the 400,000 range to 'deport'.

This will involve cash to some degree....you agree to take 10,000....you get 3,000 Euro (my guess) for each one taken.  30-million Euro to settle. 

The three problems here?  Court action to prevent the hub-situation....deportees arriving in x-country on a Monday, and headed back to Germany by Friday.....and most of the poverty countries giving a limit of 10,000 per year (meaning it'll take a decade to  resolve this mess).

But here's  the selling point....if you can make this work...AfD's brand diminishes.

4. Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder (CDU) gave a talk on the Bahn (railway system).  In simple  terms....he says its so screwed up that people are losing confidence that it can ever be 'fixed'.

As a occasional rider....I'll just say that the Bahn has become awful technical, and there are a thousand components....which any one can break and be a safety issue. I might add....of thirty-odd rides since early 2025 for me....at least six have been screwed up (minimum of thirty minutes late).  Back in 2019....on a trip into Frankfurt....the train halted in the tunnel system...unable to proceed because the train in front of us had already broke.  We sat for a good 45 minutes there in the tunnel.

5.  Chatter started yesterday....state-regulated fuel prices being discussed.

Politicians are convinced that the 'system' is rigged for profit.  If you view it from opposite view....six  different taxes are at play, and each time the fuel advances 10-cents....taxation advances as well.  Germans aren't stupid....they will figure out this 'game'.

One Odd Thing I Noticed Yesterday

The EU had a talk this week....then rejected 'chat control' of all internet communications.

What this leaves the Merz coalition?  Well....probably to have a German law where  all messenger services are checked/audited/reviewed by the police. 

I paused over this....thinking....the only way the police could cover such a massive 'empire'....is by hiring AI-companies to sort through the mess.

I'd suggest various contracts to be signed shortly....commercial companies selling intelligence-gathering software.