1. For Covid, the German gov't reduced the sales tax on restaurants from 19-percent to 7-percent....but that was a temp-fix, and it's supposed to run out in December 2023....unless renewed.
So chatter started up about this....to keep it at 7-percent. If they fail? Your budget for eating out will be lessened. You can figure a regular one-person pizza....now around 9-Euro...will go to 11-Euro or more.
My humble guess....going to be heavy public pressure, and the push for another 3-year extension of the 7-percent VAT.
2. Focus piece: Some German tourist went a few months ago to Koln for the day. What they saw downtown? Crap (literally) on the street, urine, and garbage. So the guy wrote a letter to the mayor of Koln....alerting him.
Four months pass. Focus sent a reporter to the guy, and I guess they did a walk-around....basically summing up the same problems.
To be honest, if you walk around Frankfurt, you see the same details. I would imagine most of the ten most popular cities in Germany are this way. Public toilets that did exist in the 1960s/1970s.....are mostly gone. You can walk any big city today in Germany, and if you had some urgent need....other than some McDonalds or train-station area.....there's no toilet. With more homeless people....the problem just expands out.
3. Nuclear power plants are coming up as a topic now. Even though Germany has closed all of their plants.....there's some public sentiment about correcting the electrical prices, and the belief is that nuke power is the way to go.
Politically a problem? If you look at the SPD/Greens....total negativity. FDP, CDU-CSU and AfD.....pro-nuke power.
The one odd issue brewing....as negative as Germany is about nuke power....most of their neighbors all operate nuke plants.
4. WELT piece: One out of every four German companies has 'losses' due to a lack of skilled workers.
5. Building permits for housing....down by 27-percent in 2023. Recession and loan-rates probably driving some of this.
6. Lot of hype from last night's ARD prime news at 8 PM....one out of four German kids in a poverty 'trap'. They led off with this story and talked for several minutes over the growing problem. I asked my German wife why they didn't bring up the poverty senior population in Germany (probably the same numbers or worse), and I got one of those 'don't bring this up' stares.
7. Some N-TV report this AM.....analysts say half-a-million Russians/Ukrainians now dead/wounded from 2022/2023 war. Could be some BS in the numbers....you just don't know.
8. Odd massive car crash in downtown Koln last night....ten cars involved. So far, cops haven't figured this out. Was over near the Arena. 14 people taken by ambulance.
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