Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Five German News Pieces

 1.  WELT had a piece Monday entitled: "Unfriendly and arrogant" - What disturbs foreign professionals about life in Germany.

Sadly, Germany is ranked 49th out of 53 western countries....in terms of being difficult for a 'new' guy to fit in. 

I would describe as being a country where a 'code-writer' went to work fifty years ago, and wrote the most complex code to make people, society, the economy, and day-to-day tasks function.

I'm not saying as a insult....just that it's not simple to walk in and 'fit'.

Go try to find housing.  Even if the company will pay you a high wage....the odds in the top twenty cities of the country....are that you won't be successful unless agreeing to live 20 miles outside of the city.

Want a license?  Prepare yourself for a fairly complicated system. 

2.  Focus had some curious piece talking about wealth distribution.  I guess Germany, by this ranking....is 84th in the world on wealth getting to the little guy.  

3.  Hurricane-like conditions for the next day or two across Germany.

4.  Business report off WELT.....half-a-million Germans  are on social security-style retirement and unable to make enough to survive....so they get welfare money as well.  Experts say the trend will increase.

5.  Wacken hard-rock fest?  Major event, but with the rains....everything has gotten extremely muddy.  The management folks have said enough.....no more entry at present. Across central Germany....past 4 weeks....there's been a shower or full-blast rain daily.  

2 comments:

HD Wrench said...

I saw that report on Wacken yesterday. It reminded me of Woodstock, we were covered in mud and had to sit trough several thunderstorms, but I would not trade the experience for all the tea in China.

Schnitzel_Republic said...

Based on interviews....NO one is leaving Waken, even if it is a muddy mess, and it just keeps on raining.

In the past, some of these weekends were dry/hot as heck, and folks were getting dehydrated. Some had huge rainstorms/lightning erupt. But this endless rain for past four weeks (central Germany) is something that I've never seen in July, and into August.

I gazed at the 14-day forecast....no temperatures above 24 C (75 F), and most in the 18-19 C range (65 F) range, with showers anticipated every single day (half-a-inch minimum daily). Yesterday, it was about 4 inches of rain over 8 hours. I haven't seen a full 8-hour sunshine day since early July.

Wacken folks will stay and it'll be remembered for decades.