If you go and ask a German who regularly travels by rail (long-distance or local)....the majority will now say (with some explanations ready to follow)....that service isn't as reliable as it was two or three decades ago.
The term often used? "Engpasse". It basically means....bottlenecks.
This relates to this network that has been conceived and built since WW II....that handles local, long-distance and freight traffic.
The sum needed? There was a two-day conference this week, and a lot of chatter to come after this. ARD, the public TV network (Channel One).....discussed this in a news piece. The sum of fifty billion Euro gets thrown around.
The problem here, with all the issues that exist....the Bahn is a commercialized network operation.....not a government entity. The government will give them grants to cover projects or enhancements....but the Bahn relies on tickets to pay for the normal operations.
I sat last night and watched a 30-minute documentary piece from NDR (regional public TV network from north Germany).....featuring a drawn-out story on the failures of the railway network in the north....near Sylt Island. There's a lot of hostility brewing with locals....waiting on some massive resolution or repair to the railway service.....having almost no confidence in the regional folks fixing this. If you go to the link, the 30-minute video is there to view (all in German).
My take on the problem is that urban-Germany (figure around forty significant cities around the nation) all got bulked-up in the 1960s to 1980s....and they need to go back to resolve issues with the minor things. But if you attempted this....you'd have to go and expect a current round-trip train ticket for 30 kilometers to go from 200-Euro a month ($250 US dollars) to 350-Euro a month ($425 US dollars)....way more than a German would pay.
The general get-around-this-problem chatter? The Greens want a simple answer....nationalize all of the railway services and just pay for the extra stuff via normal regular taxes....meaning everyone would see their tax rates go up.
The amusing thing (from my prospective)....if you go around Europe, no one else (with maybe the exception of the Dutch) has the impressive railway services like the Germans do. Well....yeah, I admit....the toilets onboard are often questionable in terms of being operational. I admit....the AC capability of the ICE-trains is often dismal. I admit....there's always a 10-percent chance that the coffee machine on the long-distance trains won't be working when you want a coffee. I admit that 10-percent of the ticket machines that I approach and attempt to use....are out-of-order. But the bulk of traffic runs on time, and it's awful rare for accidents to occur.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
V-Man Story
It's been almost two years since the Berlin mass killing (with a truck) at the Christmas Market (12 dead and roughly 30 to 40 injured). The jihadist-guy involved....Anis Amri....a Tunisian asylum applicant to Germany. Amri had come into Europe back in 2011...saying at that point that he was underage. The Italians (initially responsible for him) found him chiefly responsible for a immigration center riot, which led to the facility being set on fire. A court episode unfolded and he was sent off to four years of prison. He serves out most of this...given some time-off, and then gets ordered to return to Tunisia. Tunisia in this cases....refuses the guy. Amri realizes most of the game is heading down-hill.....then runs off to Germany (arriving in 2015). Roughly five months pass before he even applies for asylum.
The aliases game while in Germany? Well...this is part of the overall story. Presently, Germans will agree that he had a minimum of fourteen aliases and was collecting refugee-money on these.
Amri's end? Roughly a couple days after the truck attack in Berlin.....Italian cops accidentally stumble upon the guy and he's shot dead.
So the authorities went back to understand this whole story about Amri. This week (almost two years after the attack)....N-TV (German commercial news network) reported this morning that the Berlin authorities now kinda admit that three of their undercover guys (often the term V-men is used) knew Amri in the year prior to the attack.
The undercover status? It would appear that they had various men who were infiltrating the Islamic network in Germany and getting inside of the jihadist circle. Knowing of Amri's plan? There's no indication of that. It's just odd that it took two years for the authorities to admit this little minor detail.
The aliases game while in Germany? Well...this is part of the overall story. Presently, Germans will agree that he had a minimum of fourteen aliases and was collecting refugee-money on these.
Amri's end? Roughly a couple days after the truck attack in Berlin.....Italian cops accidentally stumble upon the guy and he's shot dead.
So the authorities went back to understand this whole story about Amri. This week (almost two years after the attack)....N-TV (German commercial news network) reported this morning that the Berlin authorities now kinda admit that three of their undercover guys (often the term V-men is used) knew Amri in the year prior to the attack.
The undercover status? It would appear that they had various men who were infiltrating the Islamic network in Germany and getting inside of the jihadist circle. Knowing of Amri's plan? There's no indication of that. It's just odd that it took two years for the authorities to admit this little minor detail.
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Why Mass Shootings Are Rare in Germany
I could make this a 300-line essay, but it really comes down to three essential factors, which won't work in the US....to the degree that Germans use them.
First, this gun-license business. While there might be six-million license weapons within Germany (82-million)....after you've been through this 'test of sorts'.....knowing full well that that the license could easily be taken, you don't go and do stupid things. With just one single police report of you intimidating or threatening your neighbor.....the local cops can revoke your license in a matter of minutes, and judges won't go and flip it back unless there is hard evidence that supports your situation. You can go and talk to any German hunter or gun-enthusiast, and they will be extremely serious about their situation and behavior.
Second, Germany is totally serious about nut-cases. It really doesn't take much for some judge to hold you....force you in for a review of your mental state....then confirm you to a mental facility (permanently).
Third, this odd relationship between behavioral control drugs, doctors prescribing them, and threats. If you have some German adult who has delusions, and the German doctor decides some new drug will control this.....then that's the end of a potential gun-licensed individual. You can look across at the majority of US mass murders, and how legal/illegal drugs fit into the profile of the guy, and if he'd been in Germany....that's the end of his access to a gun-license or weapon.
But if you attempted to take the three methods described here and import them into the US? All will be met with various arguments....some in favor of the Constitutional right to a weapon (even if you are mentally insane)...some in favor of the mentally insane to be free and wandering the streets. And some will argue that the legal/illegal drug situation cannot be controlled.
I won't go and suggest that Germany is 'free' of mass murders, but once you use this three-method 'trick', it really decreases the various acts of violence. Today? Well....you have to worry more about knife attacks in urban centers of Germany.....than gun-play. That's a whole other story and more difficult problem to resolve.
First, this gun-license business. While there might be six-million license weapons within Germany (82-million)....after you've been through this 'test of sorts'.....knowing full well that that the license could easily be taken, you don't go and do stupid things. With just one single police report of you intimidating or threatening your neighbor.....the local cops can revoke your license in a matter of minutes, and judges won't go and flip it back unless there is hard evidence that supports your situation. You can go and talk to any German hunter or gun-enthusiast, and they will be extremely serious about their situation and behavior.
Second, Germany is totally serious about nut-cases. It really doesn't take much for some judge to hold you....force you in for a review of your mental state....then confirm you to a mental facility (permanently).
Third, this odd relationship between behavioral control drugs, doctors prescribing them, and threats. If you have some German adult who has delusions, and the German doctor decides some new drug will control this.....then that's the end of a potential gun-licensed individual. You can look across at the majority of US mass murders, and how legal/illegal drugs fit into the profile of the guy, and if he'd been in Germany....that's the end of his access to a gun-license or weapon.
But if you attempted to take the three methods described here and import them into the US? All will be met with various arguments....some in favor of the Constitutional right to a weapon (even if you are mentally insane)...some in favor of the mentally insane to be free and wandering the streets. And some will argue that the legal/illegal drug situation cannot be controlled.
I won't go and suggest that Germany is 'free' of mass murders, but once you use this three-method 'trick', it really decreases the various acts of violence. Today? Well....you have to worry more about knife attacks in urban centers of Germany.....than gun-play. That's a whole other story and more difficult problem to resolve.
A Construction Story
There was a great documentary piece on ZDF (public German TV, Channel Two) last night (around 10:40 PM)....entitled: "Expensive and planned - cost trap state construction projects". I recommend the documentary and you can view it at the site I noted above. Unfortunately, it's all in German.
What they did was lead off with a study that had been done by the Hertie School of Governance. The topic? They demonstrated that of a 119 German state-owned large-scale projects completed since 1960....they've exceeded the anticipated cost by 73 percent.
Why the cost problems? The experts point out that most projects today are only vaguely planned into details, then they get drafted into documents to help the politicians explain this to the public and pass them via local, state or national legislatures.
Reality then seeps into the picture as the construction crews arrive, and find that things are like the original concept laid out. So the escalation starts to pick up and about half-way through a project....you've spent your allocated funding and need to go back and get more money.
In just about every single state (sixteen of them total).....you can find projects like this.....either completed, underway, or anticipated to start in the next year or two.
Projects on the private side.....like the Terminal Three situation at the Frankfurt Airport (underway)? That's different....they have architects working down to the ninth-degree and these rarely go to some massive overrun. Course, you have the Berlin Airport project (seven years delayed)....mostly because of zero project management by the city folks (remember, it's not a private airport like Frankfurt).
The sad thing here is that these projects are soaking up vast amounts of tax revenue, and no one ever gets any blame for the overrun situation. The 29-minute documentary is worth watching.
What they did was lead off with a study that had been done by the Hertie School of Governance. The topic? They demonstrated that of a 119 German state-owned large-scale projects completed since 1960....they've exceeded the anticipated cost by 73 percent.
Why the cost problems? The experts point out that most projects today are only vaguely planned into details, then they get drafted into documents to help the politicians explain this to the public and pass them via local, state or national legislatures.
Reality then seeps into the picture as the construction crews arrive, and find that things are like the original concept laid out. So the escalation starts to pick up and about half-way through a project....you've spent your allocated funding and need to go back and get more money.
In just about every single state (sixteen of them total).....you can find projects like this.....either completed, underway, or anticipated to start in the next year or two.
Projects on the private side.....like the Terminal Three situation at the Frankfurt Airport (underway)? That's different....they have architects working down to the ninth-degree and these rarely go to some massive overrun. Course, you have the Berlin Airport project (seven years delayed)....mostly because of zero project management by the city folks (remember, it's not a private airport like Frankfurt).
The sad thing here is that these projects are soaking up vast amounts of tax revenue, and no one ever gets any blame for the overrun situation. The 29-minute documentary is worth watching.
Train Issue Story
I use the German railway system (the Bahn) a good bit...probably a hundred trips a year (roughly half are 20 minutes or less). So I have a curiosity and interest in the Bahn.
Today, a story popped up via ARD (public TV here in Germany, Channel One)....which worries me to some degree.
It's a shortcomings story, which details all the woes of ICE (the intercity series of trains...which travels at high speeds...going from major city to major city.
On any given day, only 20-percent of ICE trains are fully functional. You could be on a train with four passenger cars, and only two of the four toilets function. Or you could be in the one car of the four-car train which has marginal air-flow/air conditioning. Or this could be the train with a coffee/snack bar....but the coffee machine is broke and will be five days before they have the parts to repair it.
Empty billets? Well....this got mentioned as well. The Bahn is short on 5,000 employees (IT staff, maintenance, support, etc.
All of this adds up and as the journalists point out....in major urban areas, it often means delays.
To make ICE work (including Austria and Switzerland), there's a total of 259 trains in the system. Around a third of the trains in use....were built between 1989 and 1997....which means they are approaching thirty years old. The newer ICE series 4 train? There's a total of 220 on the purchase order but so far....only ten to twenty have made it into the system.
Is it strictly ICE with the problems? Not really. I've ridden on regional trains that had AC problems in July....with stifling heat. I've also ridden on a three-car group (each with a toilet) and all three toilets were broke (what's the odds of that).
The problem here is that once you start to convince Germans of a second-rate service or the lack of dependability....they quietly move onto accepting car or airline travel. If you had to get from Munich to Berlin for a business meeting....twenty years ago, a fair number of folks either drove or took the train. Today, you can fly the route for about 75 Euro, and it takes 75 minutes (one way). The same route with the Bahn? You'd be talking about four hours of travel (one way, with no delays) and a cost factor of 100 to 120 Euro.
Today, a story popped up via ARD (public TV here in Germany, Channel One)....which worries me to some degree.
It's a shortcomings story, which details all the woes of ICE (the intercity series of trains...which travels at high speeds...going from major city to major city.
On any given day, only 20-percent of ICE trains are fully functional. You could be on a train with four passenger cars, and only two of the four toilets function. Or you could be in the one car of the four-car train which has marginal air-flow/air conditioning. Or this could be the train with a coffee/snack bar....but the coffee machine is broke and will be five days before they have the parts to repair it.
Empty billets? Well....this got mentioned as well. The Bahn is short on 5,000 employees (IT staff, maintenance, support, etc.
All of this adds up and as the journalists point out....in major urban areas, it often means delays.
To make ICE work (including Austria and Switzerland), there's a total of 259 trains in the system. Around a third of the trains in use....were built between 1989 and 1997....which means they are approaching thirty years old. The newer ICE series 4 train? There's a total of 220 on the purchase order but so far....only ten to twenty have made it into the system.
Is it strictly ICE with the problems? Not really. I've ridden on regional trains that had AC problems in July....with stifling heat. I've also ridden on a three-car group (each with a toilet) and all three toilets were broke (what's the odds of that).
The problem here is that once you start to convince Germans of a second-rate service or the lack of dependability....they quietly move onto accepting car or airline travel. If you had to get from Munich to Berlin for a business meeting....twenty years ago, a fair number of folks either drove or took the train. Today, you can fly the route for about 75 Euro, and it takes 75 minutes (one way). The same route with the Bahn? You'd be talking about four hours of travel (one way, with no delays) and a cost factor of 100 to 120 Euro.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Driving Story
For those who ever wondered about the driver's license process in Germany.....as a German, it's a fairly long and intensive driving course. You can figure a thousand Euro (1,200 US dollars), with several months of an occasional class....then the written and practical test.
I noticed today in Focus (the German news magazine)....a piece which chatted about this young 18-year old German lad, who had stepped in and presented his paperwork (completed) at the Rhineland Westphalia local license office, and walked out with a brand new license.
It was approximately an hour later (after picking up the license), that cops pick up the story of the young German lad.
He'd been caught doing 95 kph in a 50 kph city zone.
They read off the riot act to him. They were seizing his license....giving him two points in Flensburg....facing a four-week ban on driving....and a 200-Euro fine (roughly $250 US dollars).
In addition (this is the sad part of the story).....he will only get the license back once he shows that he's been to a local driver trainer, and taken a refresher course (figure at least 150 Euro for that) and at least two to three Saturdays wasted on refresher training.
Serious about driving violations? Yes. The Germans have a high expectation level on how you drive, and the competency required for city and autobahn behavior. I worked with an American contractor who'd done some pretty stupid stuff, and the cops came by his house one evening to announce such-and-such ticket had occurred (a photo situation) with him in an extremely high violation speed. The time-period required? A loss of 90 days. The amusing thing is that the next day....he got into his car and drove to the base/work, without the license in his possession, and sat down to ask me about the implications (he intended to drive each day to work....without the license). I spent two minutes going through the lecture and how big the fine would be if they stopped for any reason. He didn't care to hear that lecture.
This kid? I doubt that he gets the license back for at least four months.
I noticed today in Focus (the German news magazine)....a piece which chatted about this young 18-year old German lad, who had stepped in and presented his paperwork (completed) at the Rhineland Westphalia local license office, and walked out with a brand new license.
It was approximately an hour later (after picking up the license), that cops pick up the story of the young German lad.
He'd been caught doing 95 kph in a 50 kph city zone.
They read off the riot act to him. They were seizing his license....giving him two points in Flensburg....facing a four-week ban on driving....and a 200-Euro fine (roughly $250 US dollars).
In addition (this is the sad part of the story).....he will only get the license back once he shows that he's been to a local driver trainer, and taken a refresher course (figure at least 150 Euro for that) and at least two to three Saturdays wasted on refresher training.
Serious about driving violations? Yes. The Germans have a high expectation level on how you drive, and the competency required for city and autobahn behavior. I worked with an American contractor who'd done some pretty stupid stuff, and the cops came by his house one evening to announce such-and-such ticket had occurred (a photo situation) with him in an extremely high violation speed. The time-period required? A loss of 90 days. The amusing thing is that the next day....he got into his car and drove to the base/work, without the license in his possession, and sat down to ask me about the implications (he intended to drive each day to work....without the license). I spent two minutes going through the lecture and how big the fine would be if they stopped for any reason. He didn't care to hear that lecture.
This kid? I doubt that he gets the license back for at least four months.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Cost Increase
Over the next couple of months, as you walk into German grocery stores....you will begin to notice upscaled prices for potato chips. Reason? The drought.
N-TV (commercial German news) covers this story here early in the AM.
What the experts are saying is that there are forty-percent less potatoes after the fall harvest.....so they have to go beyond the German border to buy their product.
How much of a price upgrade? Unknown.....they avoid that particular discussion. My humble guess is a 15-Euro-cent will be the minimum move up (for the medium sized bag). Long-term? Well....the drought talk hasn't lessen and you just don't know for 2019 how things will go.
N-TV (commercial German news) covers this story here early in the AM.
What the experts are saying is that there are forty-percent less potatoes after the fall harvest.....so they have to go beyond the German border to buy their product.
How much of a price upgrade? Unknown.....they avoid that particular discussion. My humble guess is a 15-Euro-cent will be the minimum move up (for the medium sized bag). Long-term? Well....the drought talk hasn't lessen and you just don't know for 2019 how things will go.
Garbage Driver Story
This got brought up via our local Hessen news today.....job openings with the Frankfurt garbage department. It came with this odd angle.....they have problems in finding cooperative people who are willing to show up each day, and be on time. Garbage service isn't exactly the kind of job that most Germans want.
So....they are looking at hiring immigrants. HR, the Hessen region network tells much of the story.
The story they lay out is about this Iraqi guy....late 30s....with his family here, and a university background (economics). He's having trouble apparently getting recognition for the degree, but finding the unemployment folks willing to help him get into waste services.
The deal? The pick-up guy gets 2,500 Euro ($3k in dollars) a month. If he goes and studies up for the driver exam....it'll bump up to 3,000 Euro a month ($3.6 in dollars).
A step down for the guy? Well...yeah, but this is the problem in resettling into Germany and hoping for some kind of recognition for nursing, doctors, or educational related positions.
So....they are looking at hiring immigrants. HR, the Hessen region network tells much of the story.
The story they lay out is about this Iraqi guy....late 30s....with his family here, and a university background (economics). He's having trouble apparently getting recognition for the degree, but finding the unemployment folks willing to help him get into waste services.
The deal? The pick-up guy gets 2,500 Euro ($3k in dollars) a month. If he goes and studies up for the driver exam....it'll bump up to 3,000 Euro a month ($3.6 in dollars).
A step down for the guy? Well...yeah, but this is the problem in resettling into Germany and hoping for some kind of recognition for nursing, doctors, or educational related positions.
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