Five Stories in the News Today

 Some pieces I noticed in the German news:

1.  Lot of negative hype going on in Germany over the vaccine AstraZenica (British/Swedish).  Lot of virus experts are peeved over the public reaction.  Some political folks are talking about opening the vaccine for all folks (not just priority group one/two as we are in the prioritization program currently).

2.  Some chatter going on that political folks want Chancellor Merkel to get her vaccination live on TV. In the priority grouping.....she's in group three (still probably a month away minimum).  She hasn't said if she'd agree to this.  It would be pretty crazy if she did this.....got the jab, and then fainted live on TV.  I'd advise against the live shot myself.

3.  N-TV is reporting a couple hundred 'young people' met in Stuttgart last night, consumed alcohol on the street, and then got rowdy.  Police tried to reinforce 'peace' and conducted Covid-ban rule checks (lot of people with no masks).  Things kind of went downhill at that point.  

4.  N-24 had a piece today which chatted over a theme going on in Berlin currently....where the police arrest and submit people for charges, and the city prosecutor-office only goes through with roughly 45-percent of those charges leading to court action....the rest are 'let-off'.  A fair number of people are shaking their heads over the numbers and asking where this leads to in the future.  

5.  Some chatter going on (ARD reporting) that the Finance Minister wants to push for higher taxes on the wealthy or high-wage earners of Germany.  

Electrical Essay

 About once a year, I'll essay a piece over the cost of electricity in Germany.  It's one of those 100-odd topics that Germans whine about and get frustrated over.  

This morning, a short piece came up via N-TV over German pricing for electricity.  The total bill for all power consumed in 2020?  It was near 37.8 billion Euro (figure around 44 billion US dollars).  

It's almost one-billion more than in 2019.  

So here's the curious thing....the amount consumed is about the same as in 2018, 2017 and even 2016.  So the cost of production is what made up the billion Euro extra collected.

The price for power went from 27 cents per kilowatt hour....to 30 cents per kilowatt hour.  

Where Germany ranks among the EU members on power cost?  Number one at the top.

What happens when all these E-Cars start to show up and require electricity?  Just in general...a totally dead E-Car battery will require around 40 kilowatt hours to get it back to full-power.  That's around 12 Euro.  But remember, the range for that battery is around 300 to 400 km, depending on the car.  

All of this to mean more power and likely more cost (that 30 cent level will likely be near 45 cents in eight to ten years).  

The higher cost level?  Well....from 8 AM to 8 PM is considered 'peak-power' in Germany......so it's the period that you'd really prefer NOT to hook the car up and charge it.  

Covid-19 Story

 This came up in the general news this week....over Flensburg (a German town at the extreme north border, next to Denmark).  Population?  90k.

There's massive fear of the Brit-mutation of Covid-19 passing into the community (fair amount existing in Denmark).

So the mayor has instructed the police to be vigilant.  What this translates into?  There's at least 300 'checks' per evening around Flensburg.  Curfew starts at 9 PM and ends at 5 AM.  Anyone who is noted out and about.....gets stopped by the police and their trip becomes a serious consequence situation.

It's an aggressive approach to limiting Covid-19 and likely to irritate a fair number of Germans.  You can imagine some couple who've been out and racing home to be there ahead of the 9 PM curfew, and at 9:10....finding themselves stopped a block away from the house by the police and interrogated over their purpose of the trip.  If they give a weak explanation?  It means a summons to a judge and potential fine. 

It's a bold new world now existing and people shaking their heads over the level of rules, and rule-breaking.  

Vaccination Chatter

 There's a story out of Focus this AM....over a poll concerning the participation of Germans in a Covid-19 vaccine.

The poll says....23-million Germans won't participate.  You can do the math here, out of 83-million in population....it's roughly one out of four that might not vaccinate.

Accurate?  Well....you can't make the case for the statistic, or against it.

There are four things you can take out of this suggestion:

1.  If true, then yes....the whole vaccination program would be wrapped up by the end of July.  Curiously, this continues to be the comment uttered by the Merkel-crew and the virus experts.  Maybe they assumed a high number way back in the summer of 2020, and aren't that surprised.  

2.  From the general 'must-have' jobs out there (police, firemen, nurses, postal, bus and train drivers, etc).....can you function if 25-percent of their work-force isn't vaccinated?  It's an answerable question.  

3.  Is it established that a vaccination prevents the virus or the passing of the virus?  We simply aren't at the level of knowledge yet to say that.  We can't even say that a one-time vaccination effort is enough, and this might be required every 18 to 24 months.

4.  How can you handle international or EU travel, if 25-percent of Germans refuse the vaccination?  Will you mandate a list of requirements for a German to fly from Bonn to Greece....if they aren't vaccinated?  There's already chatter going on that mandates might occur.

Is Germany the only country with this high number?  Well.....no.  Back in mid-January....only sixty-percent of French people indicated that they would participate in the vaccination program.  

I suspect that if you drove across Europe....looking at Hungary, Czech, Austria, Italy, etc....it's somewhere between 10 percent and 40 percent of the population of each country that will refuse the vaccination.  

If you take in the numbers....spring and summer approaching, then there's some false landscape existing where the virus numbers drop dramatically.  Around September/October?  I would suggest that the virus will start a upward trend.  Maybe it won't reach the level of 2020, but it'll still be affecting the general public.  

Just something to ponder upon. 

School Story

 So this came up via the European Court of Justice (the EU court system)....not the German court system.

The question is....can a Muslim female instructor/teacher be prohibited from wearing a headscarf in the classroom?

Well...yes.    At least the ECJ says this with a particular wording.

The ECJ then says in some cryptic way that you could wear 'small' signs or attire....that "are not noticed at first glance".

I sat and pondered over the wording.  As much as the justice guy/gals thought they made it clear....they made difficult to figure out what 'not first noticed' really means.

So what does this legal standing do?  Basically, if you were a fairly dedicated Islamic gal....educated....and the local school district would like to hire you but lays out their dress-code.....then you might have a problem.

Forcing these ladies to give up this 'tradition'?  I just don't see that happening, and this will invite a number of federal political folks to fall upon themselves....to create strict rules that force local schools or state officials from declaring dress codes.

A bigger mess coming?  Probably.  

But if you asked around....looking for qualified and educated Islamic ladies in this category....I doubt if you find more than 500 of them in Germany who are in the headdress attire situation.  A fair number of those from Syria are fairly moderate and don't get into the strict view of Islam....wouldn't observe the headdress attire deal.  

Is the German Vaccination Process 'Broke'?

 Look....Germans are driven on processes, political promises, and the public being trusting of a magnificent effort being made.  All three have crapped out to some degree in terms of Covid-19 and recent weeks.

The pace?  Presently, 4.4-percent of the population have had the first vaccination, and around 2.3-percent have achieved the second vaccination (as of 25 Feb 2021).  

I think around the country....people kinda thought that things would have speeded up in the second month (they did actually speed up).  The delayed effect or perception?  I suspect this leads back to people asking themselves....other than grandma, do you know anyone who has been vaccinated, and the answer is 'no'.

If you counted up man-hours by the Merkel team to chat over Covid-19 and the vaccination business....it probably goes up into the tens of thousands of man-hours (if you go to the state and regional level).  I suspect that half the population is fed up with the chatter, and they just want a 'light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel'.

So I would say that the process isn't broke, but it's not exactly a BMW-like assembly line where x-amount of production occurs each day, and things seem to work wonderfully.

The AstraZenica situation?  If you stand around and ask a hundred Germans in a pub over over their acceptance of this brand for the vaccination business....I doubt if you can find more than 15-percent who are accepting of the brand.  Yeah, this has disturbed the political folks and the virus experts.  

Yesterday, I watched a news piece where chatter is suggesting that anyone (not on the priority two list but further down)....probably will get a chance at the AstraZenica vaccine.  More to come by next week on this topic.  

It's a unscripted drama, and you just to accept that. 

Good Script For a Five-Star Movie

 There's a fairly weird story laid out this morning via Focus....over two scandals which up to this point....had no connection to each other.  

I essayed a fair bit around three years ago over the Austrian scandal....where a video showed a big-wig of the Austrian government working on a 'deal' to give some special group insider access.  This unfolded rather quickly, and caused the downfall of the Austrian government at the time.  Austrians often refer to it as the 'Ibiza-affair'.

So there is a second scandal....'the Wirecard-affair' which came apart here in Germany within the past year.  This centers on a commercial company which claimed they had x-amount of money in a overseas bank, and there was a billion-Euro of non-existent money listed on their books.  In this case, there seems to be some characters who should have noticed this via past audits within the audit company (an outside organization) or by the German government itself.

These two scandals....up to this point....don't connect.

The suggestion here....there is a private detective who helped to arrange the video over the Austrian scandal.  This same private detective has some relationship to Wirecard insiders.  According to some German truth commission working on the whole Wirecard episode....they count up to four connections between the two scandals.  So the truth commission would like for this private detective to appear and square away the connections.  Whether he'll show up or not?  Unknown.

What appears to be going on?

Someone paid the 'Ibiza-affair' team to build a fake background and lure the politicians into a 'trap'.  The team didn't do it as a free service.  No one says the amount....but it has to be a minimum of half-a-million Euro and it wouldn't shock me it this went to the 7-digit to 8-digit amount of money.  

So, were the same supporters or backers of the Wirecard audit folks connected to the Ibiza-affair team?

Part of this Focus story suggests that 'something' leads back toward Russia (Moscow)....not necessarily the Kremlin but possibly to serious power-players in the financial markets.  

I could see the scenario where those Russian oligarchs were arranging the political fallout in Austria (via the 'Ibiza-affair) and the Wirecard collapse.  

The odds here that the truth commission will get anything out of this private detective?  I'd give it almost zero odds.  It might be interesting to know who paid the guy for the 'Ibiza-affair' video production, and it might explain some odd pieces to the story.  

The odds of a third scandal falling into play?  Oh please....don't even go and suggest that it gets worse.   

Walking in Mid-town

 Went walking in mid-town Wiesbaden today.....in the shopping district.

Best weather day since October (20 C - 68 F).....sunny.

Shopping district?  Dead....except for coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies, and medical clinics....nothing else is open (Covid-ban-rules).

It's been that way for the most part since early November, and absolutely that way since early December.

The economy?  It's hard to say how it's alive and suriving.  The government does run 'short-work' which pays around 65-percent of your normal pay to sit at home, and after around 60-to-90 days....will pay around 85-percent of your normal pay.  If you survived before....off normal pay and sales?  Well....zero on the sales part and you are probably marginally surviving.

My wife discussed real estate with a German real estate sales guy in the past few days.  He and the majority of people that he works with....all see some economic downfall approaching by the fall, with companies downsizing their work-force and bankruptcies starting up. He thinks a lot of Germans will be collapsing on their mortgages, and a surplus of homes will be on the market by early 2022.  He also hinted that mortgage banks will be in serious trouble....similar to what happened in 2008. 

Bold world coming in six to twelve months.  

Prosecutor for Berlin Raided

 I noticed this story pop up this morning via RBB (Berlin public TV)

What is generally said...a public prosecutor for the city of Berlin has been under suspicion for money-laundering, and the police have raided his office/apartment. 

Amount in this scheme?  Unknown.

One aspect in this story....this guy has various connections within the Berlin red-light district.  

Police Raids Underway This Morning

 If you watch RBB (public regional TV for the Berlin/Brandenburg area of Germany) this morning....there's a bit of action going on in terms of a raid (800 police reported to be involved).

The center of attention?  Radical Islamic and roughly 25 properties/apartments in the region of Berlin.  

Neighborhood regions of town involved?  Reinickendorf, Moabit and Neukölln.  

More to likely come out of this in the evening news. 

TV Chatter

 There's an interesting update over at Focus this morning....talking about this paper presented by the CDU.  The basic idea?  Take both Channel One (ARD) and Channel Two (ZDF)....both public TV networks....and combine them into one single network.

The two today?  ARD is the original network coming out of the 1950s, and their charter to exist is actually written into the Constitution.  In the early 1960s, the CDU Party realized how enormous political power was being generated to sway the public and attempted to create ZDF as an alternate public network (to be based out of Mainz).  ARD took it to court, won the battle, and brought ZDF in as a network under the control and authority of ARD.  In simple terms....whatever the politicians had desired to accomplish....they failed miserably and made their issue twice the original size.

In the 1980s, as alternate commercial networks arrived....ARD attempted the same tactic...to challenge and hinder their establishment.  That miserably failed, and the commercial networks quickly established themselves through the 1980s/1990s.

This paper that the CDU has generated....the layout for the future of this one single network?  Well...the original core idea was that information and knowledge would be the driving force of ARD (they will openly admit this in the 1950s/1960s).  The paper generated suggests that all entertainment would be 'dumped'.  Yes, all those police-murder movies, the various soap-opera shows, etc. 

Sports to be affected?  The paper suggests that public TV only pick up sports events, if the commercial folks fail.

What all of this would lead to?  Lesser TV/radio taxes.  Currently, the amount is set to 17.50 Euro a month, per house.

A top ten subject for the election?  There are four basic issues here:

1.  ARD/ZDF were told by the sixteen states around five years ago to find ways to lessen the cost of production.  There's little seen of this effort.

2.  Most Germans from the ages of 15 to 30....don't use public TV or radio.  My son (30 years old) will tell you he hasn't watched a single hour of public TV in at least sixteen years.  He considers his mandatory 17.50 Euro a month to be a total waste.  

3.  If you count ARD, ZDF, Sat3, and the fifteen-odd sub-networks....it's a fairly large total operation.  But once you dive into the sub-networks....the viewership tends to drop in a serious way.  It's like bringing up the ARTE channel....in an entire year....I might watch four hours of their programming.

4.  The scripts/books chosen for movie projects?  You can divide them into roughly four categories, and they are mostly the material that Germans over the age of forty prefer to watch.  

What'll happen with this CDU effort?  Its anyone's guess.  If you bring this up in a bar or pub....probably half of the Germans are extremely open to lessening the tax and combining ARD/ZDF.  Getting the two networks into a room and openly discussing the new path ahead?  You'd have to admit that 50-percent of the manpower would disappear, and that won't be a pleasant experience.

Germany and Covid-19: 25 Feb 2021

 1.  Here in my local state....the authorities have kinda agreed that in early March....stores will be allowed to reopen (rules will apply and limit of entry will be in the mix).  Restaurants and bars?  The suggestion is early April for out-door situations, and things work well....to allow some limited indoor action.  For a lot of the restaurants/bars....it's probably too late to recover.

2.  This new test at-home kit for Covid-19?  It's to be marketed at stores at 159 Euro for a box of 20 kits.  Frankly, with the pricing....I'm skeptical that Germans will rush out and buy these.  At 8 Euro per kit, it's a challenge.  

3.  Number of deaths from across Germany yesterday (Wed) from Covid-19: 416.  A week ago, it was 591.  There's been a downward trend going on for at least a month now.

4.  We are a few short of 69k deaths since day one of the virus.  

5.  I watched a N-TV update this morning....statistical average of what you'd call a rough 'event' for Covid-19.....is around one out of three Germans (RKI discussing the averages).  

6.  Vaccination progress?  Roughly 4.2 percent of the population has been vaccinated.  Most all of the vaccination centers are open and running 'full-blast'.  The claim by the government is that by mid-summer (figure late July)....they will reach the end stage.  I suspect this claim is made with the idea that a quarter of the population will refuse the vaccination.  

Asylum Story

 If you gaze around at front-page news in Germany....there's bit which came up over refugees and the German state.

The SPD Party (left-of-center) has issued up a platform document....stating their desire to open up the door and allow refugees from Greece to enter Germany.  Number?  Well....it's not that clear.  Currently, there's around 3k at the Moria camp (extremely over-crowded), and 20-odd thousand around the rest of Greece.  

For around two years, German mayors and state Premier-Presidents (state governors) have chatted up the idea that they want to take in these folks....usually hinting the 3k number, but never clear. Journalists hype the idea with video that clearly shows dismal conditions.

The front-page episode today?  It centers on this document and the clear agenda that the SPD folks want to pursue.  They say that rule 23 of the Federal Residence Act (around since 2007)....clearly says that the Interior Minister must sign the paperwork, and he is not performing his duty.....so they'd like to dump rule 23 and just allow the states or cities to do it on their own.

The Interior Minister?  Seehofer (CDU guy)?  He clearly says that they (the states) can pursue this without his permission.

I sat and read rule 23.  What it says....is that any German state can use the reason of assistance and humanitarian needs to bring people in....with a temp-visa.  However, they are doing it for themselves (that individual state).  So if four states said 'fine' and did this....they could NOT force the other 12 states to comply and take refugees.  If you want a nationwide program (all sixteen states reading the same script)....you'd have to have the Interior Minister to sign the request.  

(I should note that neither political folks or the journalists have openly read rule 23 to the public)

Do all sixteen states favor this 'save-the-Greek-refugees'?  Well....no one has clearly presented this case.  City-wise?  I can probably identify thirty cities which were pro-asylum in 2020 (at least before Covid-19 came along).  

My humble guess is that eight to ten states are fully capable of taking in 3k refugees and it's not a big deal.  The remaining states?  It'd be a serious political problem for them to face. If they were going to sign up for 20k refugees....you'd need all sixteen states to participate.  

The whole story here?  Focus tells a pretty good landscape of the problem.

Laying out this SPD paper at this point....just weeks ahead of two state elections?  It's clearly going to interest a number of folks who are anti-asylum and anti-migrant.  The fact that the national election is in September?  That's also another risky part of the story.

The pro-side of the nation presently on asylum?  It's changed radically since 2014-2016.  I'd say at this point....roughly one-third of the nation is charged-up and positive about bringing in more migrants.  The anti-side of this?  It's also near one-third.  So you have one-third of the nation in the middle.....asking a lot of questions and demanding accountability (something that no political party wants to openly discuss).

Affecting SPD voters?  No one says much and you just have to wonder if this open discussion would chase away 10 to 20 percent of their normal voters.

The odds of rule 23 from the Residence Act being changed?  Zero chance....if you add up the votes from the SPD, Greens and Linke Party....it won't be enough to force the change.  

Silly to mess with this discussion over just 20k total refugees?  That's the last angle to this whole story.  Germany took around 450k in 2014, and if you broke the 20k up into ten months....this idea might work.  But this would charge up people in various countries...to make their way to Greece, and become the 2022 or 2023 problem....which no one wants to openly discuss.  

Ban-Rule Story

I sat and watched a N-24 news piece this morning. 

There's a German foundation (Bertelsmann Foundation) that went out and polled Germans on their gut-feeling about Covid-19 ban-rules. So what they came to find out....around 33-percent of all Germans just aren't thrilled over the ban-rules, and work or play....against the ban rules at times. It's not really a shock to me. 

I think if they broke this up into age groups...probably 99-percent of Germans over the age of fifty are mostly compliant with the ban-rules. If you were a German under the age of 25? I'd take a guess that 50-percent violate the ban-rules in some fashion, and the more urban your environment....the more likely you violate. 

I see police 'blotters' each week where such-and-such raid occurred at some bar or nightclub....'consumers' or customers in the backroom, or gambling taking place, or social-hour underway with twenty guys smoking in some shisha bar. Private parties still occur around Hamburg and Berlin. Organized parties still occur in wooded areas of Berlin each weekend, with gross violation of the ban rules as part of the landscape. 

Will anything happen with the authorities grasping this? No. They might feel like making more extra ban-rules, but the one-third group would just violate those....so why bother?

Weapon Story

 There was this weapons data update done by N-24 news this morning, and it's a curious story told.

I admit....I don't really follow the amount of weapons held by registered German owners that much.  The update says that 5-million privately held weapons exist in Germany (population of 83-million). 

In fact, they even noted that there's a list of about 100 Germans (the bulk-owners) who hold 66k weapons.  The average number? 660 per owner.  No one is saying a vault type situation for each guy but you would assume that.

There's no law that says as a licensed gun-owner in Germany.....you have a 'limit'.  If you wanted to go out and purchase four shotguns....as long as you have a license, you are free to move onto the purchase. The law does state.....each weapon must be 'housed' or stored in an acceptable container, cabinet or vault...with only you having the unique key to that storage location.

Does the 5-million number shock Germans?  It depends on who you chat with.

If you engaged in some conversation in a rural village (say a population of 700) with a hunter.....he'd readily admit that the local hunters club has fifty members, and probably each guy owns a minimum of five guns.  If you did the statistical collection, it comes out to 250 guns in the village....almost one for each three residents.

The news folks?  They will tell the story in some way to suggest there's way too many guns held by private owners.  But this entire process of the license.....which no one ever goes to challenge as being 'broken'.....maintains that there isn't a problem existing.

The odds that in ten years....the 5-million in guns goes up to around 8-million?  Unless some idiot comes along to say there is a max number per licensed individual.....I don't see how the number stays the same.  But I don't see how the number relates to any suggestion of more problems. 

Blumentourismus?

 Loosely translated to English, it's 'flower tourism'.

Last night, I was watching German news and the Premier President (governor) of Baden-Wurttemberg came on....hyped-up and negative of course....that various residents of the SW state of Germany were getting into their cars and driving into the Pfalz state or Bavaria....to shop for flowers (their home improvement shops are open, unlike Baden-Wurttemberg's shops).

This is part of the Covid-19 issue.....various ban-rules are made up by individual states.  

He has a point.....some residents are driving 90 minutes to cross some state border, and with all the fine weather of the past week (extremely spring-like)....folks are in the planting state of mind.

The pressure is on this guy....to unhook some of the ban rules before his state's landscape shops lose a ton of business.  

Bottle Crime?

 For those who've never been to Germany....recycling and deposit bottles is one of those things that takes a while to adjust to.  Certain beverages (beer bottles, soda cans, soda plastic bottles) are deposit situations.  Milk bottles, juice bottles and wine bottles....are NOT deposit situations.

This being strictly a German thing?  Well...if you operate a drink shop, grocery, or restaurant....you are supposed to use the deposit bottles (bottled-up in Germany).  The French, the Dutch, the Poles?  They don't do this, and their bottles don't have the correct barcodes to signal the collection machine (in every grocery or drink shop) to pay back the deposit.

Well....N-TV had this update today....relating to the drink deposit business.

Bavarian cops had this delivery truck that they were looking over, and it attracted them to investigate.  

Contents?  Non-German drink bottles, with counterfeit deposit labels.  26,000 bottles.  

Value?  6,500 Euro...more or less.

Serious trouble?  Well....this is the comical side of the story.  He got caught in 2019 for basically the same thing....counterfeit labels on drink bottles.

In that case, he actually got a suspended bust and didn't do any jail-time.  This time?  I would imagine that he's going to have a tough time explaining this.  

What's he been doing since 2019?  Well....just me guessing, but I would imagine that he's probably collected several thousand bottles monthly (from outside of the country), and easily cleared 2k to 3k monthly.  

The thing about this line of crime....you need to just keep things reasonable and not attract attention with a whole delivery truck loaded down with bottles.  

How will the guy explain to the inmates how he got convicted?  Counterfeit drink bottles?  

ID Story

 This morning, N-TV here in Germany had a piece which puts a curious story out on asylum requests in Germany.

For 2020, roughly half of the 100,000 requests for asylum in Germany....were applications that had no passport or ID.

Roughly 2.3-percent of those who did have passports or IDs.....were counterfeit/fake.

In some cases, the individual did have some 'other' type of card on them (like a license or such).

A big deal?  The German authorities typically want positive identification on who you are.  So the element of a mystery 'guest' just doesn't make the process easy.  It just makes them more suspicious of your request and they end up spending more time on finding out your real identity.  

School Story

 I sat and watched early morning news on N-24 this AM.

The curious topic that popped-up?  Some study had been accomplished in the US....to show that the real rate of Covid-19 infection comes NOT from students or high-school kids, but from instructors/teachers.

This going against the idea that kids were all unsanitary or non-hygienic....being more likely to be the carriers of the virus?  Well....yeah, that's the big issue.  

How to relate to this data and conclusion?  I would suggest that kids are probably more adaptable to the Covid ban-rules (at least on mobile transportation and in general), than adult teachers would be.  

Germany and Covid-19: 23 Feb 2021

 1.  Locally in my state (Hessen), school is set to reopen....1st grade to 6th grade, with classes split in half....alternating days.  It would appear that this will be the strategy for the rest of the school-year.

2.  A survey was done on Hessen school kids, and 77-percent said that they felt overwhelmed and stressed-out while doing the in-home schooling routine.  

3.  N-TV reports this morning that Dusseldorf's city council are very worried about people now standing around (we've had terrific weather for the past five days....very warm), and eating ice cream while sitting on benches, or having picnics on grassy park areas.  So they made up a new ban rule....no lingering (just keep walking)....for the 'old-town' area. Fear of Covid-19 passing around....just means you eat ice cream 'on-the-go'.

4.  This 'free' fast at-home test deal talked about with the Health Minister (Spahn).....now on the back-burner.  More questions being asked.  New date of 8 March for decision on this.  

I sat and watched the test demonstrated yesterday....with both adults and kindergarten kids.  Easy to use....basic claims of 99-percent accuracy.  Relative cost is a couple of Euro, which appears that the government will take on (at least at this stage). 

Fake Poster

 We are two weeks away from the local city council election here in Wiesbaden.  There are tons of signs up for the twenty-odd parties which are campaigning for the election.

I noticed today....driving around town....one single poster up....advertising a campaign slogan....NOT just legalizing marijuana, but free distribution as part of the campaign promise.

Fake poster?  More than likely, and I doubt if people really notice the sign.

Most political parties will hint to some small degree....that they'd like to legalize weed.  They usually won't lay out the plan or how it'd all work.  

I would imagine....between ages 18 and 30....if you had this to a voting situation, it'd come pretty close to 50-percent voting approval for such a thing.  The over-40 crowd?  Less than 20-percent probably would vote for it.

But in the case of this one poster?  Free marijuana?  

Truth Commission Chatter

 Since around 2014, if you lived in the Neukolln neighborhood area of Berlin (the far south region of town).....you might have noted around a half-dozen 'events' which have been deemed 'right-wing' extremism.  These mostly involve vehicles set on fire, 

The fact that no one has been arrested on any of these events?  Well....it is a bit odd.  Two arrest warrants have been issued in the past two months.....but neither of the two guys mentioned....have been seen (still on the loose).

So the public TV folks at RBB lay out this story, which is worth a read.

All of this 'action' has led to a truth-commission being formed by the city government.  

Last week, the truth-commission finally issued it's general report.

First, they admit there's nothing wrong with the police or prosecutors involved in this whole business.

Second, they think that more communication (at least from the police) needs to occur.  They aren't saying much over content suggested....just that the public needs to get another image of whats going on.

Third, the truth commission suggests that for decades, this right-wing extremism has existed in Berlin.  

Fourth and final....the truth commission lays a fair amount of blame for public feeling on the news media.  In some way, they are suggesting that the news folks 'fanned' the flame a bit.

Neo-Nazis at work?  I went back to a local report at the end of December....two local guys arrested for an 'event'.  Connecting the two guys back to car-fires?  Well....it didn't really progress well.  The police locally....can say they are neo-Nazis without any doubt....beyond that, the connection business is marginal.

A lot of the events being car-fires?  Well....yeah.

It used to be a non-existent crime (if you go back to the 1980s and 1990s).  Back in the summer of 2018, a hundred-odd vehicles were set on fire in Sweden.  New Year's eve in France for 2020?  More than 800 vehicles were set ablaze.  Go back to summer of 2018 in Berlin....in a single night, 14 cars were set on fire.  August 2011, a couple of dozen cars were set on fire around Berlin.  

No one ever gets busted, and there's almost no way to suggest such events are left or right-wing extremists at work.  

The fact that a lot of these are working-class people who serve as victims, and in most cases....they carry only liability insurance....so their car won't be replaced or covered by insurance?  It's just another frustration. 

Maybe there needs to be a bigger truth-commission and just start discussing vehicle fires in general.  

Is There Really a German Housing Shortage?

 No.

What you have are highly urbanized 'zones' (cities), like Hamburg, Munich, Dusseldorf, Brelin, Dresden, Koln, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden Bremen, etc....which have all advanced in terms of population over the past forty years.  

So you go 50 km north of Frankfurt, or 50 km west of Dresden, or 50 km NE of Munich....finding yourself in rural areas with homes or 'cottages' selling for 80k Euro and no consumers interested in buying or renovating them.

I sat the other night looking at the entire state of Bavaria....off a 'homes for sale' database.  Nearly 4,800 homes listed. Probably half needed a minimum of 50k Euro of renovation, but some were ready to move into.  The chief problem?  You are in the middle of nowhere for a high number of these, with no jobs in those regions.  

I found six railway stations (built before 1900).  You could take any of these....throw some money in, and have three or four apartments ready to rent out.  But you'd be in some valley with no urbanization existing. 

If you went across all of Germany....all sixteen states, and looked at homes and condos?  I would imagine you'd find more than 250k available. 

So looking at this urban problem created....is there any solution possible?  No.  The magnet cities will continue at the same pace, with speculation folks holding onto farm-land until it's ready to build up new housing.  

Dog Story

 Germans often have a particular fondness for dogs, but an extreme negative view on dog-owners who allow 'Barney' to crap on the sidewalk (without cleaning it up).  

So this topic came up this week in the Pfalz region of Germany, and there is a pretty interesting discussion going on.  SWR covered the bulk of this.

Some Germans are now suggesting that besides the yearly dog tax....that maybe your 'Barney' should also give a DNA sample.  So when he craps on the street....a guy will come by....examine the crap....test it, and then come back to identify the crap to your 'Barney'.

Then, at least by the discussion....the cost of cleaning your 'Barney-poop' will come to you in a envelope, and they might asses one single poop to a certain amount of money (they avoid saying the magic number).  Right now, the dog poop fine is around 100 Euro (more or less, and depending on which town you live in).  After this DNA law goes into effect?  If you figure the cost of a DNA test, and the man-hours involved...it wouldn't surprise me if the cost went up to 250 Euro.  

Discussion state-wide?  No....right now, just one single town in the Pfalz, and the dog population is 1,700 (human population of 2,800 roughly).  

The fact that visiting guests to the town, might bring their out-of-town or out-of-state dogs along, and they poop.....but fail to match up to anyone in the database?  Well...it's best not to bring up this scenario.

Finance Story

 This week, I sat and watched a 7-minute piece from public TV in Germany.....where they 'tried' to explain the Gamestop 'saga' (where it briefly rose from $19 a share....to $483 range, and then dropped (to $40 today).  

I will admit....they did bring two young investor types into the short piece to explain part of this story, but I'm guessing that from a 30-minute interview of each....they basically carved off 40 seconds of this guy and 40 seconds of the second guy.

What was generally missing?  A whole discussion over 'short-buying'.  

Why?  I couldn't really figure that angle out.  

To be blunt, you can't talk about the whole Gamestop story without a 15-minute lecture from a shorts-specialist, and explaining the dynamics of the 1929 Wall Street collapse (which heavily involved short-buying).

Did anyone watching this segment get anything of value?  The most I would suggest is that investing is risky, and if you were a German.....you should avoid stocks.  It's a silly journalistic effort but that's the reality of the situation.

E-Bus Situation

 Around three weeks ago....my local town (Wiesbaden)....took possession of 21 new battery-powered buses (from the Mercedes people).  Things were kinda exciting there for about a week.  The buses got quickly charged up and put on various internal routes within the city. 

Yesterday....an announcement came out....the 21 buses are on stand-by now.

There's some type of recall underway, and the bus folks are asking for your understanding on the frequency of routes.  

The issue?  They avoid discussions over that in public.  

The fact that we had pretty harsh weather throughout the first three weeks of February?  Well....no one brings up that subject.  

Around two years ago....a couple of new buses (E-bus type) were delivered to Trier.....around February as well.  Those buses discovered that as you ran max heat onboard the buses.....it discharged the batteries at a pretty quick rate.  They went through a down-period like this, and little was said after that. I'm just guessing that using max heat on these buses here.....fits into the same profile.  

School Topic

 RBB (public TV in Berlin) brought up this topic on Covid-19 and education today.

There's apparently been a lot of discussion over marginal advancement in education with German school kids (grades 1 to 10), and politicians are in the middle of this. A draft law has been created locally (affecting Berlin-City itself).

The draft basically says that if the kid (with the parents signing the note) believes they haven't really wrapped up where they should be (in the educational sense), then they could repeat the entire past year again.  

Amount of cost?  Unknown.  No one has spoken to this topic.

Consultation of the teachers and school officials?  Well, in some way....this is also built into the system, and they could deny the request.  

An issue nationally?  Some educational officials are saying yes.  But you have to remember....education is one of those topics in Germany which is handled state by state, and federal officials don't really fit into the topic.

How many kids would do this?  That's another unknown.  My humble guess is that it might go as high as twenty-five percent.  

If you said 'no' and persisted to move into the next grade in August?  Well....if you suddenly woke up in some class by September and realized that you are marginally ready for this level of work, then what?  

Some angle to this being called the 'lost year'?  That would be my gut feeling over the mess.

If the virus upswing were to occur again in October, and another cutback on classes were to occur?  No one really discusses this angle of the discussion.

A Street Name Story

 Public TV (ARD, Channel One) laid out this interesting story on modern times and street names.

This story centers on Magdeburg (population 237k), which is located on the eastern side of Germany (yes, in what was old DDR).  

It's a historic town.  If you wanted note five of the big-name towns of the Roman era, and extended into the early 1600s....Magdeburg would be on that list.  

The city has two fairly well known universities in the local area.  If you were looking upon industry and production....it's fairly diversified (it's not a one-industry town).

So there's this one unique thing about the 1,600 streets in town....three-percent of them are named for women.  To be honest....it's only around thirty-percent which are named for men.  The rest?  Mostly named after non-human things.

This effort started up....that more streets need to be named after ladies.

The push?  Well...the suggest is that as all new streets are built.....they can only be named after women, until they reach equal standing (meaning the 46 female streets need to reach the status of the 460 male name streets).

This created a a huge discussion in the city council.  

They did the math and statistical count.  It's not really a clear thing but the city generally only approves three to six new streets a year, so some members of the city council said that it'd take around 100 years before another street could be named after a guy.

So they worked on this mess and eventually wrote up a compromise.....for each three female streets named....there would be one male street named.  

I know....in most cities, there's a priority list of things to work on (potholes, poor planning, recreational events, crappy bridges, wild boar on  the loose, too much graffiti, dog crap on the sidewalk, lack of art, too much art, etc).  

I often go walking in major urban areas (like Mainz, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Koblenz, etc) and you tend to notice a lot of street names.  Doctor-so-and-so strasse, Professor-so-and-so strasse, Mayor-so-and-so strasse, etc.  Yeah, it is a mostly male-dominated naming convention at work.

Yeah, there's no doubt that male names stand out.  But you have non-human names which are part of the structure as well.  

The problem left in Magdeburg?  You will have to find publicly known women (most likely buried six-feet under) to use for the naming convention.  I'm guessing they probably have twenty-odd female names ready for the first batch over the next three years, but eventually.....you will have to go and find mostly unknown women (like women convicted and killed in the 1630s for witchcraft).  

Will this become some national trend?  No evidence of that....but you just have to wonder how this discussion started.

The Three Euro Story

 This story was kinda laid out in Focus today, and it take about 20 lines to tell this some comical story.

We'll give this guy involved.....who is a music-club-bar owner.  The establishment?  Mal Anders.  We should give the guy a name for this story....of 'Huns'.  

Huns runs a small operation....mostly rated as the second best music-club-bar in a town of 8,000 people.  I should note that he serves pizza, and traditional German food.

Huns had been pretty screwed over 2020....with closure fitting into the landscape a good bit because of Covid-19.  

In December....some federal folks had created a fund to help small business owners like Huns with 'gifts' of Euro.  Normally, it was supposed to make up for losses.

On the 26th of December....Huns sat down and did the paperwork, then hit 'submit'.

A week passed, and it came back approved.  Huns was pretty happy.

Then Huns looked at the sum (he'd been hoping for several thousand Euro).  The sum?  THREE EURO.

Huns picked up the phone to call his regional office.  They basically said there wasn't much they could do, but forward him onto a state 'hot-line'.

That led to another forward action....in Dusseldorf.  There, the state representative said there wasn't much he could do.  So they forwarded Huns....to Berlin.

The Berlin guy said there wasn't much for him to do, and gave Huns a news number back in the regional office (near the village).  It was a new number and new person.

That didn't help, so they forwarded Huns to the state office of NRW for Economics.  They said they couldn't help and then gave him a new number in Berlin (federal folks).  

At this point, Huns had wasted four hours of the day....trying to talk over THREE EURO.

Finally, he gets this email from a federal person (Berlin) that suggests....yes....'there is probably a problem in the system'.  

No one says what the reaction of Huns was, but I'm guessing it's anything you'd want to talk about in front kids.

The problem here....for the entire previous year (2019)....Huns had actually missed that whole income situation by THREE EURO, so he could only ask for three Euro.

What happened here?  I went back and looked up the grand opening of Mal Anders (Huns 'club')....31 October 2019.  Yes, he was only open for roughly two months of 2019.  

The stupid form?  Well...he has to put in the total profit of the year, and these dimwits in Berlin are not capable of grasping....when he missed the profit of 2020 by three Euro....they are missing the other ten months of the year (2020). 

The situation now?  There has to be a correction in the system for this type of mess....but until then, as the Fed guy said.....you have to make due with three Euro.

The odds that this will come up as a national chat forum topic by Monday night?  I'd say it's a 50-50 chance.  It makes the Merkel government and the fix-it stance look pretty stupid at this point. 

The common chat topic.....no one wants to take responsibility for a problem or fixing it?  Well...this episode proves that point.

All Must Suffer Chatter

 It came up today via N-TV news....that the Linke Party (really the far left political party of Germany) is advocating that members of the Bundestag, with Chancellor Merkel and her cabinet....should all take a pay-cut because of the Covid-19 crisis.

If regular people are suffering....so should the political folks....if you follow the discussion.

The current pay scale for the Chancellor job?  Well....20,165 Euro per month (yeah, a fair chunk of money).

The minister crowd?  It's in the 16,000 Euro a month range.  

Odds of this happening?  Hard to say.  

Finding statistical data to say half of Germany has suffered greatly in 2020, and achieved only 70-percent of their normal pay-scale?  No, you can't really find reliable data to say.

Various barbers and hair-dresser folks will say....they lost in the range of 50-percent of their 2020 pay, but at the same time....they are kinda avoiding the subject that maybe a third to half of that loss is 'tip-money'.....which they don't really report for tax purposes.

As for the question that the Chancellor is losing half of that 240-odd thousand Euro a year to taxes?  If you review the taxation rules....it wouldn't shock me if she only takes home 50-percent of that income....as it stands right now.  

More Covid-19

 Over the past two weeks....a fair amount of Covid-19 (the Brit variant) has shown up in Flensburg (last town before you leave the country heading into Denmark, around 90k in population). 

Focus did a good update on the situation and is worth a read. What you can take out of this....the local government has gone to the extreme over the infection rate.

The new rule here?  Social contact of any type (beyond your family) is totally banned for a week.  Curfew after 9 PM each evening?  Absolute, unless it's an emergency.  

The worry in Denmark?  They suggest that in another week....they expect 80-percent of all new infections to be the Brit-variant.  

Remembering Hanau

 It's been a year since the Hanau attack, which ended up with ten dead and five wounded.  With the anniversary business, it's been hyped-up a good bit over the past month or two.  

To describe the entire episode?

You basically had a German guy....mid-forties...who had paranoid schizophrenia (he readily admitted voices in his head), who reached some point on blaming non-Germans for the problems in his life.  

He would go to the mid-town area around midnight....with a pistol and shot various folks in bars.  All were immigrant/migrant background.  

At the conclusion, he went back home...shot his mother dead, and then himself.

Another manifesto-guy?  Yeah.....that's another odd part to the story.

Claiming he was often followed by secret agents?  Well...yeah, he made that claim.  

The German authorities carried this investigation of the guy to the ninth-degree...mostly I think...because they wanted to label the guy up as an extremist.  But the more you put on the table about the guy.....the more he appears as a mentally-challenged individual and should have been in some facility if there was an 'ounce' of threat in him to endanger others.  

If you went around Germany and hunted down all the manifesto-idiots?  You could be talking about a thousand of them.  

Berlin Story

 There's this draft bill before the city of Berlin city council....entitled: "Volksentscheid Berlin car-free." 

RBB (public TV in Berlin) discussed the basic concept, which would only affect the city residents themselves.

The affected area?  The S-Bahn ring.....east to west...around seven kilometers....north to south around five kilometers.  

Yes, the heart of Berlin, when you get down to it.

So here's the deal if passed....car trips within the 'ring' would be almost non-existent (limited to 12 trips per year).

Delivery vehicles, fire trucks, the police, ambulances, buses and taxis?  Still allowed. 

After ten years....the 12 trips per year would be cut in half. 

More or less a forbidden zone for cars?  Yes.

What would happen, in terms of consequences?  I'd generally predict three things.  

First, a fair number of people would find the courage to move out of the Berlin 'zone' and escape the approaching restriction.  

Second, some people wouldn't care, and might just dump their car altogether....to live in such a 'zone'.  

Third, they were careful in the wording not to mention scooters, and this leads me to think that you'd start to see 20,000 scooters within the zone....creating an odd new problem.  

This New Self-Test German Deal

 Approval for a quick-and-simple Covid-19 self-test is approaching (probably within four weeks).

The deal?  Free....at least in their initial stage.  They haven't said the way that it'll be distributed, but it'll happen via local pharmacies.  

The issue?  Well....they did testing.  Out of forty people that did have the virus....the self-test was applied and 33 showed positive....meaning 7 didn't show positive via this test.

Selling this....with a marginal results situation?  It's better than nothing....would be the response.

My humble belief is that it's the first of a dozen-odd tests to be released, and by the end of the year.....some test will arrive to be 99-percent accurate.  

As for the issuance of the tests?  You will show your passport/ID and probably be allocated one per day.  I tend to believe that two months into this....someone will package these (maybe thirty in a box) and sell it for 40 Euro.  You'd get up each morning and test yourself.  

I'm not saying this really give you much of a plus-up, but it's better than worrying about that sniffle or cough all day.  

The Other Group of People

 Toward the end of 2020....this Covid-19 anti-bodies test was done in the central region of Germany.  Roughly 2,200 folks were tested, and the results have come back.

So the shocker in this RBB news item?

From the group in the 2,200 who'd been positively tested at some point in 2020 and diagnosed with Covid-19....the anti-bodies showed another second group (almost the same number), who had Covid-19 but never seemed to show all the symptoms, and were never tested.

Logic here?  None.

You simply have x-number of people with some type of DNA, or plus-up on their health....who never had any real symptoms to lead them to be tested.  

Just Something That Was Noticed

 Someone in the German news media brought it up today, and I kinda sat there amazed.  

When you rack and stack all the public characters who get air-time or public forum invitations involving any discussion of Covid-19....it's roughly 90-percent CDU-CSU folks.  

Yes, there might be three or four SPD (left-of-center) folks in the mix, but no Greens, no FDP, and no Linke Party.  

The medical folks or experts?  Generally unattached to any party, and they probably make up a good one-third of guest time.  

For 13 months, it's been that way.  

The only two major SPD characters that you generally see?  The Finance Minister (vice-Chancellor) and the SPD health expert (Lauterbach).  

It is luck at the basic end of this discussion....the virus came along at the time when all the major functions of government in the middle of an epidemic just happened to be CDU-CSU.

Free advertising?  In some way, they've carried a lot of charm, and been lucky in that no significant screw-ups have occurred.   

Observations

 1.  Temperature chatter going on....for Sunday, they are actually predicting 18 C (68 degrees F).  Yes, the third week of Feb....it's spring-like weather approaching.  Pretty crazy I admit....in central Germany.

2.  Hessen has signed up and will start running a truth commission over the Walter Lubcke murder (Kassel, June 2019).  Court case ended around a month ago....life sentence for the guy involved.  What drives this truth commission?  After getting deep into this murder.....lot of extremism seems to be involved, and this list of 25k names comes into play (potentially targets), and so....there seems to be fear over the 'unknown'.

3.  In recent days, the Brit-variant of the Covid-19 virus has been noted in roughly 22-percent of folks tested.  All things considered....not much holding it back now.

4.  So it's kinda funny in some ways.  Lot of hype built up about six weeks ago with the EU and this Swedish/UK vaccine AstraZeneca.  In various ways, the EU botched up it's chance to get early delivery and they flipped this into a five-star theatrical situation.

Well....so things get ironed out and delivery starts to get dispersed to various EU countries.  AstraZeneca has started to arrive and be available in Germany.  Reaction?  Doctors are a bit shocked....no one is standing up and asking for that particular version.  Public feeling, based on differing reports.....it's not as effective.  So you got a fair amount of the vaccine sitting there, and it's appearing like the Germans may have to donate their share of the EU vaccine situation over to some partner country (maybe even outside of the EU). 

5.  Back in the 1990s....BMW ran a hydrogen engine project.  It reached a level where it simply wasn't going to work (with the level of technology that existed).  So BMW now says....they are dusting off the project, and looking at the use for long-haul trucks.  I'll predict that you see this trend continue with buses as well.

6.  Letter-bomb reported at Lidl grocery headquarters in Baden-Wurttemberg region.  Three people injured....cops investigating.

7.  Citroen is bringing up a new vehicle....Ami.  Electric 2-seat vehicle, which I'd describe as one step smaller than a Smart car.  Deal?  You can only lease it.  Pricing, near 2,600 Euro as down payment, and 20 Euro a month, for four years.  

Range?  Roughly 75 km.  Top speed?  45 kph (28 mph).

After some review, I'd say that in some highly urbanized area (Berlin or Hamburg for example, it'd be a perfect vehicle.  Size?  Well, after viewing the photos....it's about the size of a larger go-kart.  

Life after the initial four years?  It's one of those vehicles that I think would be getting fresh new batteries, and repackaged....re-leased for a second four years (maybe a lesser price).  It might actually have a future in city travel.  Definitely won't sell in rural regions.  

Germany and Covid-19: 17 Feb 2021

 1.  At some point in March, it's expected that the German health authority will approve in-home/rapid Covid-19 tests.  Trust-factor?  Well....it's already noted that only the lab tests are 100-percent reliable.  Will these sell?  What the health authority is opening discussing now.....making the in-home tests available for around 1 Euro per test.  

Use expected?  Unknown.  Some folks are suggesting that virtually everyone will have one or two of the tests around for emergency use.  

2.  Defective FFP-2 masks?  Well, the story is opening up today that Baden-Wurttemberg (the state) went and bought a whole bunch of the FFP-2 masks, and they aren't stamped as official masks (counterfeit?).  Worthless?  You get that impression.

3.  Decision on whether Oktoberfest occurs or not?  The decision by Bavarian officials will be made this week (if rumors are true).  If they do agree to let it occur?  I'd expect it to mandate daily tests at the gate for everyone entering.  Out of 100,000 visitors per day....I'd take a guess that at least 300 would fail.  

But another even more important question arises....what if they have the Oktoberfest and only 30-percent of the normal crowd shows up?  Fear likely to overwhelm the passion for the beer fest?

4.  The EU health authority has come out with a plan: develop some 'rapid' path to  mutated viruses through genome sequencing, then get a 'rapid' program for Covid-19 vaccines to the mutants, then develop some European network for clinical tests, find some way of speeding up the approval process, and finally....figure out a way to 'rapidly' speed up production.

The thing about this 'chatter'.....these are all things that they should have been openly discussing in August of 2020.  

On the topic of speedy production?  The companies will be grinning and suggesting....just plug in a couple billion Euro to run staged plants around the EU.  Rather than build the pricing and production into one price.....you'd have a tremendous amount of vaccine production....probably even to a rate of ten times the amount of vaccine required.....because of poor planning.  

Not to condemn the EU folks....but they haven't exactly shown brilliance at the level required. 

On the genome 'chatter'....you just kinda wonder....isn't this how the whole bat-virus thing got out anyway?  So we could have bat labs here in Europe...instead of bat labs in Wuhan?  That sounds like a winner.  

Speeding Story

If you live around the Frankfurt region....you might know of the two speeder-accidents from the past month.   In both cases.....pedestrians were killed within the city limits, and it's strongly believed by the police that speeding (depending on where you are in the city, it's either 30 kph or 50 kph....meaning 18.5 mph or 31 mph) killed the folks.

In this case from Saturday night...police now have 50 different witnesses coming up and all report that the driver was going greater than the normal speed.  

So this last incident has triggered two topics that drivers hate with passion.

First, the city is talking about more blitz-cameras (the speed cameras).  I don't think they are suggesting a mere dozen additions.....you might be looking looking at dozens of these set-up around the city.

Second, the city authorities want to have a discussion about the catalog of fines.  This means they want speeders to pay a price of exceptional value when caught within an urbanized area.  The talking point right now?  At a certain speed, you go to a permanent loss of your license.  Where this occurs?  Unknown.  It wouldn't surprise me if this were set at 50 kph over the speed limit.  It also wouldn't shock me if they said a three-year loss of the license for speeds of 30 kph over the limit.  

So all of this brings up the topic....when did this high-speed racing start to be a problem in Germany?

Typically, at least in the 1980s....if you wanted to go and take your car on a high-speed run....you'd go to some local racing track.  You'd pay some entry-fee, and get five to ten laps to get the thrill out of your system.

If you follow the news....this mostly seems to be a problem from the past twenty years....centered exclusively on young men...and following along some trend that you started to notice around 2000 with customizing of cars.  At least once or twice a year...the news media will center on this and discuss these car modifications (some illegal).  Its become a money-pit for some guys to dump cash into.  

The sad thing about this trend now?  If you went around and added forty blitz-cameras to the city, you could be talking about regular people being affected, and easily having most everyone giving the city 300 Euro a year for their minor infractions.  

(note: I average about 40 Euro every two years on blitz-cameras myself and I'm not much of an aggressive driver)

This Green Party Discussion Over Multi-Family Residences Versus Single-Family Residences

 For most people, this is a rather silly discussion.

If you live in a highly urbanized area of Germany (Example: Bremen, Koln, Berlin, Hamburg, etc)....there's this Green Party discussion going on that if there is open property existing (say a forty-acre speculative farm property on the edge of Bremen), and some building effort is mounted....the priority or approval should be tied to it being entirely multi-family residences.  This means six to ten apartment buildings on the forty acres that would house 1,000 families.....and NOT 120 private residences housing 120 families.

How you'd rack and stack this priority?  You'd have an approval process which has various approval authorities....who mandate multi-family residences for urban development. 

If you had real money for a single family residence?  You'd go beyond the city boundary, and look for distant towns with some rail connection to the city you work in.  

Urbanized cities then grow with urbanized designed living spaces.  The single-family concept continues....just beyond the grip of the city planners.

I sat and watched some 'propaganda' piece three years ago, where some environmental-friendly planners were 'selling' the idea of apartment buildings over single-family residences.  In their mind, societies thrives in apartment living. 

The blunt truth?  If you went to a hundred families living in structured apartment living today.....they'd all point out the negatives and paint the scene where you have to deal with people who aren't in your economic class or working class.  

Making this a policy of an entire city?  That's the weird part of this trend.  Presently, most communities are looking at projects and limiting this trend toward multi-family situations (it's not full-scale, at least not yet).

Family-flight?  If you look over the next twenty years.....it'll an interesting period when compacted and urbanized living turns into something pretty negative, and 'magnet-communities' start to exist for families.  

BREXIT Back as a Topic?

 I sat and read through a Focus business report today....dealing with BREXIT and the future.

Total loss over the next two years from Germany?  Thirty-five billion Euro (roughly 40 billion dollars).

The producer of the report?  Well....the EU.  So, after reading through the piece....I was left there a bit skeptical.  

The effect on the UK?  Severe (four times the effect on the EU).  So that's the story told.  I can't vouch for the numbers or the 'slant-factor'.

This ending up as a Germany-only mess to clean up?  It wouldn't really shock me if the leadership after September's election views the UK-Germany relationship in a different way, and pushes the EU to the side in rectifying the mess created.  

Thirty-five billion Euro of business losses....means jobs cut somewhere in Germany, and it won't be a pleasant thing.  

Fake Vaccination Chatter

 For a couple of weeks, if you look around the commercial 'underground' web sites of Germany...various ads are up to connect you to the purchase of Covid-19 vaccination 'solutions'.  Basically, you pay cash to get ahead of the vaccination line structure that the government has put into place.  

So I watched this German news piece last night.....this German reporter picked up the topic....gazed through the ad situation and selected one. 

The deal was made over the internet....the reporter would get the vaccine for two people....pricing set at around 360 Euro (figure $400 roughly).  

The arrangement?  Well....at this point, I was skeptical. The 'dealer' needed you to have some cash deposit ahead of time (you would buy some Google or Amazon credit at a local grocery, and provide the image of the card numbers to the 'dealer').  The amount?  100 Euro as a deposit.  

The meeting point?  Some rest-stop/truck-stop area near an autobahn.  I was maxed out on skepticism at this point.  

The reporter shows up....waits, and waits, and waits.  No one ever shows up.

No 'dealer'.  The amount on the card as deposit?  Gone.

So the bulk of these Covid-19 vaccination deals under the table?  All fake?  Mostly.  

How many of these advertisements existing?  Literally hundreds.

How many Germans are faked out on this weekly?  Unknown.  The police know of the affairs, but they don't really have the manpower to really go after these guys.

Is the Supply Chain in Germany Under Threat?

 Over the past couple of days....the border with Tyrol and Czech has been tightened up to an extreme.  If you were a trucker approaching the border, you get in line and anticipate a minimum of three hours of waiting before crossing the border.  All due to Covid-19 worries in these two regions.

The fact that the border of Austria lies between Tyrol and Czech, and it's not that controlled?  It's best not to bring up that subject.

Several logistical experts have come out over the weekend and talked about the slowdown.  Various agricultural companies use the traffic situation through Germany to deliver beyond the German border (Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway).  

No one is saying it's at some threat status yet, but the worry is that any day now....you might see ban rules expand again in Germany and suddenly a three-hour delay goes to a 12-hour or 24-hour delay.  That starts to have a ripple effect across not only the German economy, but going across the EU itself.

So this is very much....a wait and see situation at the border. 

Consequences Story

 I noticed last night a unique project that ARD (public TV, Channel One) had picked up and was going to use for a period of time.

The general subject?  Consequences.

Just because something gets picked up as a political topic and hyped by various media sources and political parties....doesn't really mean things improve.

Some examples of what they are going to cover?  What if you really clamped down big-time on German-produced weapon sales?  

Another example?  What if you went to a culture where cash was not used and you 'carded' everything?

They aren't talking about a bunch of these....only one per week here in the beginning.

Personally, for well over thirty years, consequences has been a major part of my thought process.  I think about it in terms of finances, maintenance, and pay-back.  I think about consequences relative to vacations, long-term investment, and my general voting practices.

Will this put political parties in Germany in a difficult position?  To some degree, yes.

An example....the Linke Party often hypes up the idea of free transportation for buses/trains.  When I say 'free'.....it means that you don't pay for the ticket.  So the consequence here, if you thought about it......who exactly is paying?  Well....it'd come out of your taxes....meaning you'd pay around 500 to 800 Euro more each year in your income taxes.  The fact that you might not ever use such transportation (using your personal car or motorcycle)?  It's just another consequence.

It might be a curious trend.  

Forum Chatter

 Last night, via ARD's public forum show (9:45 PM)...Anne Will Show....the topic was the Corona policy.  

Curiously, they had on four of the top people who are considered the chief candidates for Chancellor in the fall (Soder-CSU/CDU, Lindner- FDP, Baerbock-Greens, and Scholz-SPD).

This chatter mostly went to the alternate ideas being circulated and the suggestion that the Merkel-program (whatever is being done)....has finally crapped out.  Both Soder and Scholz had to defend the current program to some degree.  Lindner and Baerbock went on the offensive side.

What you can generally say is that this open forum really didn't achieve much but make the point that patience and understanding among regular working-Germans has reached some peak.  

The demand that a number of these ban rules end in early March?  There's enormous pressure building up in individual states now, and it doesn't matter how Merkel or the federal crew feel....the states have control of the ban rules.

Baerbock (Greens) and Lidner (FDP) getting traction for their parties?  I would suggest over the next week....polling will indicate both going up a point or two, and the SPD/CSU-CDU folks going down a point or two.  Baerbock....is fairly sharp on wit and was ready for the chat-forum.

As for the public getting anything out of this one-hour chat forum?  No.  The Covid-19 policy is a pieced-together situation, with a thousand moving parts, and logic is often lacking.  It doesn't matter who is explaining it....it just stumbles along.  

Another Tunnel Idea?

 There is a brief item of discussion going on this morning....concerning Northern Ireland and England.  The topic?  The idea of building a underground tunnel between the two.  The PM (Johnson) hyped up this idea again.

Reality of this?

You'd have to build a bridge-like device (about 1 km long) from Bangor (Northern Ireland) out to an island off the coast (Copeland Island), then run a tunnel from there over to the west coast of England (figure roughly 24 kilometers long).  

Impossible?  No.  The technology has been around for forty-odd years, and proven by the tunnel to France.

Cost?  That's really the impact area....it'd probably go into the tens of billions of Euro to complete.  Would you ever even get your money back off this investment?

If you discussed the Chunnel costs per car (relative to today)?  If you go at the cheapest point of the day (usually after midnight and before 6 AM)....it might go for around 31 Pounds per vehicle.  Thats $43 US.

Odds of this discussion continuing on?  In the midst of Covid economics....no.  

Curiously, if you started to figure some ongoing relationship with the Republic of Ireland, and business expansion....the tunnel idea makes perfect sense.

Ten Misconceptions That Germans Have Over Impeachment 'Chatter'

 After watching events unfold over the past year, viewing the public news media, and the forum discussions that occurred....it's curious about the misconceptions.  At some point about a week ago, ARD (public TV, Channel One) laid out this update and had the three or four experts to explain how this was absolutely going to be a impeachment conviction.  If you watched it as a German, you felt 'sure' of the words spoken.

The misconceptions?  

1.  The idea that all one-hundred Senators are unattached and independent.

- There are two parties, and the bulk of the members (doesn't matter if you chat about Democrats or Republicans).....owe some allegiance to their party.  It's been that way for over two-hundred years.  The eight Republican senators voting for the impeachment conviction?  Most were either not running again, or set for the next six years.  There's only one of the eight up for re-election in 2022.  

2.  Impeachments convictions do occur.

- Well....no.  Once you establish that you need two-thirds super-majority....the game is nearly impossible to accomplish.  Mathematically, you could walk into a betting room and find this scenario on the board, and bet a hundred times.....winning all one-hundred times.

3.  Insurrection is easily defined.

- Well....no.  Officially on the books, there's been a minimum of thirty insurrections noted in the US (over 300 years), and if you really jumped into deep history....there's probably another 500 events that might be very closely defined as insurrection.  

We simply don't utter insurrection much, and trying to define this as an insurrection, and this is not an insurrection.....isn't that simple of a task.

4.  The US Constitution is a model for preserving democracy.

-  For every strength that might be seen within the document, there is a weakness.  It was designed for the 1770s era, and over the past two-hundred years....several segments have been added to get the republic 'over the hump'.  It's best to describe it as a twenty-page document that resembles a operating manual for the citizens and the government....that really ought to be 4,000 pages long.

5.  A through investigation of the events of the 6th of January has been completed.

- Well....no.  There are at least a hundred questions left there....currently unanswered.  The odds that these will be resolved?  Zero.  You don't see a truth commission developing or a House/Senate committee to settle the events discussion.  

6.  If they'd just impeach Trump, he'd go away.

- Well....no.  He'd still have access to criticize the current agenda and media (certainly not Twitter/Facebook) would be an open source to the public.

7.  Guilt is easily proven.

-  It certainly wasn't that way with the OJ Simpson case, and there's probably a thousand examples where guilt just isn't that easy to prove.  When some 'expert' says 'guaranteed' or 'easy'....they are setting the discussion into a propaganda stage.

8.  Before Trump came along, everything was stable and peaceful throughout the US.

- Well....no.  Since the 1990s, you can find literally dozens of examples where political division is being charged-up almost monthly and resembling a wrestling-match script more than a democracy.

9.  Riots are triggered by antigovernmental 'plotters'.

- One can go and use the Bonus Army riot of 28 July 1932 in Washington DC, as an example on riots.  It had nothing to do with antigovernmental plotting.  

10.  Impeachment is absolutely not a theatrical show.

- Sorry, but it's about a 50-percent corrective 'tool' and a 50-percent theatrical show.  This is why such a large number of Americans are skeptical about the landscape they live in.  

Germany and Covid-19: 14 Feb 2021

 1.  HR (public TV) put up a short piece to discuss the problem of German school kids who are getting no exercise and thus.....gaining weight.  The calculated deal?  They figure one out of three kids between 10 and 14....has above average weight now.  Resolving this?  No one says much.

2.  Resolving all the ban rules by Easter?  NO.  Politicians are hinting in a strong way that Easter will be a very marginal and limited period.

3.  Border controls in place?  Yep.  Against both Czech, and the Tyrol region of Italy.  Germans are fearful of the virus spilling over.  If you look at Czech numbers....it's way up over the past two months.

4.  Finally, the German word-protectors stepped in and said 'no, you can't call the British mutation....the Brit mutation'.  So the official term you are supposed to use?  This mutation is B1.1.7.  

So instead of talking about the British mutation of the Wuhan virus....you need to go to saying it's the B1.1.7 version of the Covid-19 virus.  

The fact that Chancellor Merkel still utters 'British mutation'?  Well, it takes a while to force your mind to always say the right words when discussing the Wuhan-virus.

5.  Shot vaccination success?  On the first shot business....it's at 3.1-percent of the population.  Those completing the second shot, at 1.6-percent. 

Total infection count since day one?  2.3-million.  Total death count, 64,799.  

Barber/Hairdresser 'Mob'?

 It's a bit comical, but around 1 March (a Monday)....things are going to be hectic in Germany because the ban rule to keep barbershops and hairdresser shops closed....will be purged (at least for March).  They've all been shutdown since early November.

It's a bit comical but you can watch various German TV shows and forums, and observe both men and women with hair-problems.  Some have attempted self-cuts and done pretty harsh things to their appearance.  

For the last day or two, there's been a fair amount of chatter over this, and there is some expectation of mobs now.  The possibility of getting an appointment for that first week?  Unless you call in right now....I'd say in a day or two....you won't find any openings for at least the first half of March.

Some folks might even find themselves stuck....maybe until the end of March before they can get the reservation time.

City Council Voting Situation

 My German wife got a ballot deal from the local German city council election.  Election in roughly four weeks.

So you gaze over this....around fifteen parties....most of which you've heard of and know something about.

The one oddball deal?  The Pro-Auto-Wiesbaden Party.

I tried to look up the folks, and the only thing listed is a Facebook page.  Roughly a dozen folks listed under their group, for the city council seats.

What they generally stand for?  Well....they say the traffic situation in town is 'crap' (my word for their description).  They also suggest that the pro-bike folks seem to get all the attention.

Far-left or far-right?  Well.....it's hard to define their position.

Odds of getting votes?  Well, here's the thing, there are 81 seats on the city council (yeah, way too many), and you might figure that they'd end up with one or two seats....just by luck.  

If they'd advertised?  There are enough people fed up with the traffic system in town.....they might have gotten ten seats with a little bit of public discussion.  

Yeah, just what we need....a pro-car party.  

Vaccination Woes and Possible Fines?

 So, this is how the German vaccination program runs.  There are various 'centers' in operation around each state.  There is a priority listing that says four groups exist, and ranks them for the shot.

We are in category one of the stages and have been there since the week after Christmas.  The people in this stage?  Mostly all of those in 90 or older....medical folks dealing with the Covid folks, etc.  

Well, it came up this week that a number of folks....who would be priority group two, three, or four.....have 'sneaked' in and gotten shots.  The list?  Well.....local political folks, religious folks, firemen and the police.  

Upsetting folks?  Well, it's gotten in the news and the questions got put to national Health Minister (Spahn).  Spahn came out today, and basically said.....there's going to be a review of the mess, and there might be fines in the future....if you got 'out of your priority group'.

So how did this business unfold?  Each day....x-amount of the vaccine is removed from the freezer, and you kinda need to use it up by the conclusion of the day.  If x-number of folks don't show up, or x-number of reservations aren't taken....the stuff is dumped.

These extra folks fell into this group, or they 'mistakenly' felt they were in the top priority group.  Having some authority figure there to take charge and deny folks or to allow some in because of extra vaccine left at 6 PM?  No....in most cases, you don't see that central authority guy there.  

Having some kind of fine dumped on folks?  How much?  Unknown.  My humble guess is that Spahn will just make up a number....like 80 Euro.  In that case.....most folks are so fearful of the virus....they'd gladly pay 80 Euro (I might be willing to go up to around 400 Euro myself....my German wife would freak out and try to tell me that the 'bribe' shouldn't be more than 20 Euro).

Again, it's one of those 99 silly things that has come up over the virus, and how things just don't run the way you'd think.  

Vote Mail Today

 Today's mail delivery was kind of interesting.

I got an envelop from the city (Wiesbaden) letting me know that the foreigner council for the city is having an election, and I can vote for one of the option 'parties' to have my representation:

1.  Democratic Alternative List DAL 

2.  Kurdish List KL 

3.  Syrian Democratic List SDL 

4.  Alliance for Integration and Equal Opportunities BIC 

5.  Wiesbaden's Intercultural Women List WiF 

6.  List MigraMundi eV LMM 

7.  Friends of Democracy and Freedom FDF

8.  Multicultural List ML 

9.  Iranian and Afghan List IAL 

10.  Assyrian Union Wiesbaden AUW 

11.  Progressive Foreigners Union PAU 

12.  Wiesbaden Akademisyenler Birligi WAB

As a visa-holder, it's a odd deal.....this 'council' is supposed to represent foreigners in the city (all visa-holders).  How many of us in the city?  That's an unknown figure and never openly discussed.  If you asked me....it's probably in the 7k to 10k range (just a humble belief).

Will I vote?  No.  I don't see the council having that much effect except for monthly meetings and knowing the mayor on a first-name basis.  It does build up prestige within various groups (like the Afghan groups, Syrian groups, or the Iranian groups).  That might have some value in twenty-odd years.

Covid and Education Chatter

 This is an odd discussion that started up in the last month in Germany.

Schools and education....are generally a state topic (not a German federal topic), but there's a serious amount of discussion going on....to say that German kids are not at the level you would anticipate....because of the Covid-19 crisis.

So this week, my regional public TV folks....HR....brought up this discussion with an expert.

The current idea?  Well....there's this suggestion of going to a 'long' school year....meaning that if you were in the 6th grade and the end of June came up....there would be a month-long summer pause, then you'd go into the seventh-grade normally.  Under the 'long' idea....you'd return to classes in July, still in the 6th-grade and continue until the Christmas holiday off-period.....then graduate to the seventh-grade.

All of this leading to some serious consequences down the line?  Well....yeah.

The fact that some kids might be totally up to the level where they are supposed to be?  That's part of the mess as well.

To utter 'lost generations'?  The guest speaker really didn't want to tangle with that topic.

This idea of some national or federal 'solution'?  Teachers would like one single script.  But the system is not designed this way (16 states and 16 different scripts for education).

More chatter by spring?  This might end up as a top ten election topic.  

Upswing on Housing Construction Cost?

 This got brought up yesterday on N-24 news and it's an odd consumer story.

The German government is busy designing construction disposal rules.  What they are looking at....as you build a house, there's always bulk materials....concrete, bricks, wood left at the end....which typically got put into a fair sized dumpster and sent off to the local landfill.  You'd pay some bulk-disposal fee for the dumpster.  It's wasn't a ridiculous cost.

Well, now things are going to change over the next couple of years.

Things....even like the dirt or rocks you dig up for the property basement....have to go to a special landfill.  The concrete and wood products left?  Each will go to a special dump area or re-use area.

Added cost factor?  Some experts are beginning to talk about the potential of one single large house being built....with near 80k Euro added for just special dumping/disposal.

Affordability?  It's basically flipping a goal for most families of having their own new house out the door, and presenting a rough path for the future of construction in Germany.

Environmentalists at work?  To a certain degree...they simply got focused on the bulk products left at the end and figured they could force you into reducing this in some fashion.  If you ask me....more and more houses will be built (piece-wise) in some depot-building and delivered to the site with minimal waste products existing for the consumer.  

Mental Health Chatter

 Over the past month, there's not been a single evening news piece (via public TV Channel One or Channel Two) in Germany....where some moment was not discussed over physiological issues, counseling, or depression increasing. 

Lately, it's been more chatter about German school kids who now have issues.

In the last couple of days....more chatter about folks with addictions (meaning alcoholism) and that boredom is now a national crisis issue.

Most Germans (I would suggest 90-percent or more) had a routine before Covid ever came along....social groups, Tuesday-night cards at the local pub, a sports club (bowling, tennis, etc), or some weeknight where twenty folks gathered at the local pub to watch soccer....that helped them socialize and feel 'alive'.

Since early November...that has been totally trashed-up.

Where this is leading to?  At some point by late summer, I expect around a half-million Germans to actively be seeking some kind of counseling or group-sessions....admitting that they are frustrated over Covid-19 ban rules, the lifestyle demanded, and the path ahead.  You might even have mandatory group sessions rigged up for school kids (fun-days or group-chat sessions)....just to step up to the crisis business.  

Even before Covid-19 came along, Germany was noted for mental disorders.  You can go and read a basic description here.

Germans with phobias?  It's near 12-percent of the population.  Germans with anxiety issues?  It's near 15-percent of the population.  

Three years ago, roughly 17-percent of German students were figured to have some type of mental health issue (long before Covid came along).

By the end of 2021, I expect some national crisis crew to come out and this ends up as a top ten issue.....getting Germans into therapy groups and trying to resolve frustrations.  

The Next Covid-19 Worry?

 About two months ago, the hype for Covid-19 went up a couple of notches with the announcement of the newly discovered 'British-mutation' (thus violating the naming convention, and begging the question why the Wuhan-virus couldn't be uttered) and the 'South African-mutation'.  

Germans flipped out....started the new ban rule on the masks.....throwing out cloth masks/cheapo paper-masks altogether and forcing everyone to rush out and buy these more expensive new FFP-2 masks.  Along the way, various new ban rules got tossed around.

Well....I noticed this morning the N-TV news....where the 'Manus-mutation' is now openly discussed (from Brazil).  

The 'British-mutation' or 'South African-mutation'?  They were considered twice as deadly as the old plain regular Covid-19.

This 'Manus-mutation'?  It's considered THREE times as dangerous.

Will this freak Germans out even more?  Hard to say.  I suspect almost a third of German society is pretty much finished on obeying ban rules, and have reached a level of serious depression.  They even now discuss openly via forums about school kids who need some counseling because of the current mess.  

But this also brings me to this continual trend now of mutations, and that by May/June, there's probably two to three newer mutations (the Beirut-mutation, the Hawaii-mutation, perhaps even the Mongolia-mutation).  By the end of 2021....realistically, there might be forty different mutations existing by that point.

The potential that one or two of these are going to five times more threatening or dangerous than plain old Covid-19?  You can go and speculate that some scenario will occur like this, and the ban rules will just continue on.....maybe even to the point that if you go out shopping....you need to wear some disposable paper-suit in order to enter a grocery operation.