1. The BSW Party went and asked the German federal gov't for numbers....over retirement pensions.
So....around a third of what you'd consider full-time workers in Germany....are expected to receive a monthly pension of 1,100 Euro or less....having given 40 years of effort.
If you asked most Germans....they'd say the bare minimum these days for retirement is 1,400 Euro a month.
Yeah, this probably will be a major talking point in the 2025 federal election. Where to find money to prop up the low pensions? Unknown.
2. It is a odd number which came up in some radio talk show here in Germany....concerning migration statistics. Data? From the Federal Statistical Office.
So for 2022....German population grew by 1.5 million. But when you tell the whole story.....there were 2.7 million folks who arrived. Meanwhile, in the same talk....1.2 million folks left.
So the question came up......why did these folks leave? Answer is simply not there.
Oddly enough, out of the 1.2 million....around 270,000 were actually Germans.
Then this other funny number falls into play....two-thirds of people who left....were in some way....EU-citizens (meaning German or any of the other EU states).
A big hole on why? I'd suggest that it's opened up a whole discussion...where zero facts are obvious.
3. For the first time since the Kohl era (over 30 years)....Germany appears to have spent a minimum of 2-percent of it's GDP....on defense to NATO.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg spoke this on Monday evening.
Current year spending? Will amount to 73.41 billion dollars.
Whether it'll continue in 2025? Unknown.
A lot of this due to the Ukraine-Russia? Absolutely. But it will lessen the talk of Trump....at least for 2024.
Now, if you asked me...of the 73-billion spent....did they get bang-for-the-buck? That might not be answerable.
4. For those who didn't grasp this or know it....for years, Germany has had a rule that said IF you had a doctorate degree....you could have 'Dr' on your national ID card or your passport.
So the topic has come up for political discussion. Chief reason? Well....at border points outside of Germany....they (not the Germans) started to ask if 'Dr' was part of your actual name, and if this were false IDs. Silly, I admit, but no one is hiring the best and brightest for border-check-points.
So the Bundestag is going to discuss still allowing you (if you have such a degree) to put it on the ID/passport....but on the rear of the card, or second page of the passport.
Why the necessity of noting this gal or guy has a doctorate degree? I suspect its something left over from the 1800s. The fact that it might only be a doctorate in French literature or agriculture? Well....it's best not to bring up values of degrees.
5. Back around 5 years ago....there was talk of a bicycle parking 'house' being built in Hamburg at a major U-Bahn station on Kellinghusenstrasse. The idea took off and there were supposed to be an average of 1,000 bicycles parked there, once the job was done.
So the bicycle parking garage on Kellinghusenstrasse was finished in 2021....at a cost of 3-million Euro. Yeah, it was a heck of a lot....for just a building that would be for bikes.
Recently, someone took a walk around in the middle of a work-day....noting that of the 1,000 possible parking spots....only 15 were parked.
Then they noted...outside of the bike-house....a couple dozen bikes were 'littered' in the area. The 3-million? More or less.....totally wasted.
I know....I can probably show you forty of these bike park 'houses' in the Netherlands....all fully in use and worth the investment. The one here in the Mainz train station....fully in use. They simply guessed wrong on use for this idea.
6. Russia will go back to a law on the books...if you suggest any negativity about the war as a Russian....the state can confiscate your property. In an election, year....it will quiet down thing in a hurry.
7. Regionally, via HR (my Hessen TV network), they got around to an unusual topic...corrupt Covid test centers.
What they say...in the range of a minimum....there's at 49-million Euro which was 'over-charged' on the tests while they ran.
At some end-point? No....that's the other shocker....they keep turning over more records.
In the past week, cops went to raid some guy who'd run an operation for Covid-testing, and found around 350,000 Euro within his residence.
At some point...maybe in the spring of 2021....I would imagine at least forty Covid-test centers existed in the Wiesbaden city-region. Maybe there was oversight and inspections going on....but you just didn't have the manpower to really engage upon this.
At another point...in 2021...I noticed some news crew was interviewing a guy's lounge (topless dancing)....which was shutdown because of the virus, and the crew had flipped the lounge over into being a testing center. I was shaking my head....thinking something is likely to be corrupted here.
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