1. WELT piece from yesterday, Justice Minister Buschmann (FDP), promises that if you are German and anti-Semetic or anti-Israel.....you probably won't be getting access to a passport.
Meaning? With the German national ID card, you can still travel around the EU....but without the passport.....you won't ever be able to leave the EU area.
2. Curious polling by FORSA (one of the top polling organizations in Germany). They went around on this past Sunday....in Berlin, and asked about feelings of the SPD-coalition.
One out of every two they interviewed....were harsh/negative. Not a good sign.
3. For those who might remember the 'old' German Commerzbank (from 2008/2009)....they were on border of failure, and were saved at the last minute by the German federal government.
As 2023 ended...shocker....2-billion Euro profit and dividends to be sent out shortly.
4. Just an unusual story out of Focus.
Down around Lake Constance (far south of Germany)....some German state property guy was given a task....go find a hotel property to house refugees. This was 2016.
So he finds this older hotel, and writes up a 9-year lease for property.
As the refugees moved in....they said....'there's stuff wrong with the building.' The state ends up calling in a guy to assess the problems. I should note here....Focus says he charged the state 40,000 for this assessment. I'd skeptical they would be this stupid, but that's the story.
When the guy finishes this....the fix for the building is figured to be 532,000 Euro. Yeah, way more than they can spend.
So no one moves in. The state continues to pay monthly lease money.....with no residents. Wondering the monthly amount? Roughly 6,000 Euro a month.
It takes 5 years to finally break the lease.
There are probably hundreds of stories like this....where people with expertise in the business of solving issues like this....took on work without considerations.
5. Some kind of weird 'war' has started up in Germany on Tesla cars, and far-left activists. They hate the car, the public chargers, and Elon. No idea where this started up....probably a group of intellectual leftists with little to pick on.
6. If you know the cosmetics shop....'The Body Shop', in Germany....word came yesterday....bankrupt.
7. New counseling center trend in Germany starting up....theme? To help Germans who went out on a date or two.....then got dumped without any reason given. The folks (men and women) have some need of physiological 'healing.
Not sure where this goes. In the late 1970s....you would have taken the bad date ending with three or four shots of whiskey, and some kind words from the GI's in the TV room of the barracks. Not sure what the modern way of healing would be.
8. Odd event...Thursday AM....from what the police say....train was between Ulm and Donaueschingen. Regional express train.
Drunk German onboard....gets rowdy...is approached by the ticket audit guy.....'things go south' as we say in the US.
Guy threatens the ticket guy with a knife A drunk passenger on a regional express between Ulm and Donaueschingen threatened to stab a train attendant with a knife and shoot police officers with a pistol. I should note here....neither the knife or the pistol has ever been seen.
State police get called, and they enter the train....arresting the guy.
No injuries. Charges? The judge will do a mental stay on the guy (my humble guess), and if he passes it....making the threat will likely get him a year in prison (if he'd had a knife....it'd go to several years).
9. I essayed about that German rape case in Görlitzer Park in Berlin last week (the court case underway), with three gentlemen (drug sales folks) accused of raping a woman. Well....the gal wouldn't show up....so the judge said enough....ending the case.
10. Not that I'd complain about it.....NOT a single snow flake has fallen since 1 December 2023. Blast of snow and arctic conditions for whole month of November....then the mildest winter I've seen in thirty-odd years of German time. Geese pass daily over....heading north. I was at a garden shop yesterday....tons of people buying plants for spring planting.....something they'd traditionally do in late March. Way ahead of schedule.
11. If you wanted maximum political drama....it came last night (Thursday) via ZDF's public forum show....'Maybritt Illner'. Yeah, it was a bit late and probably few viewers.
Illner had Beatrix von Storch (AfD Party), Sahra Wagenknecht (BWS Party), and Jens Spahn (CDU).
For those who aren't aware....Spahn is the master debate 'king' in Germany and hardly anyone tops him. A good portion of the evening was spent with him carving up both the AfD and BWS themes.
At some point, he offered up the quote aimed at both parties: “What you have in common is that you want to sell us to Putin!”
At another point, he offers up the opinion that BWS is merely the AfD Party-plus social issues.
12. The EU did a special report on economic conditions for the future, and potential for 'growth'. German, of all the members of the EU.....is listed last.
Bad sign for the SPD-coalition? Yeah, and if they reacted....most all of their talked-about plans and promises of the past three years....would just disappear.
2 comments:
Regarding 5. It's because he's a vapourware salesman who should be under investigation a la Elizabeth Holmes. Probably only a matter of time before the lies catch up, but then again, maybe he'll just shift to politics and lie his way into office.
On Elon being political? No...zero interest. This odd suggested 'war' is mostly out of eastern Germany, and there was a discontent when he announced the chosen site, then a number of folks wanted concessions. The drama played out with suggested water shortages in the region. What I found interesting (just watching)...no big company over the past 40 years had really gone into eastern Germany (old DDR) and laid down jobs. Musk went against the pattern. Lot of east Germans have been waiting on Scholz, Merkel, Kohl, and Schroeder to deliver...getting little to nothing on job development.
Personally, I would gone to Bavaria or into Czech...for the Tesla factory.
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