Sunday, August 6, 2023

Five German News Stories

 1.  I noticed with the Lebanon 'warnings'....Germany also gave it's residents the warning to pack and leave ASAP. 

2.  Wacken concert organizers say the loss on this weekend's efforts was about 7-million Euro.  Between the mud and bad weather.....it did hurt the pocketbook.

3.  Some chatter starting up about the 49-Euro train/bus ticket deal in Germany.  You buy a monthly ticket, and go anywhere (literally, except on high-speed rail) with the monthly ticket.  

What chatter is about?  The 2024 ticket cost.  A lot of the federal funding ends in December.  Some folks believe the 2024 monthly ticket will escalate to 69-Euro.  

I kinda predicted this, and might even go to suggest that it'll only briefly stay at 69-Euro a month for 2024.  I suspect it'll hit near 85 to 90 Euro by spring of 2025.  Will people still pay for it?  Yeah, because it's still a reasonable deal at 90 Euro a month.  Before all this Covid BS started up....in my region, if you wanted the full-up go-anywhere ticket....it was near 100 Euro a month for an adult.

4.  WELT had a piece this AM talking about Russians getting visas to stay in Germany.  Number?  Since the war?  Tens of thousands.  I think that would shock some Germans.

Public security threat?  So far, I've not seen a single indicator of that.  As things go....I expect this number to continue.   

5.  The debt crisis for Greece in 2018.....got them dumped down on credit status.  In the past week, that status was improved....one of those rare occasions where a nation improved it's financial appeal.  

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