E-car Story

 A three-liner business item popped up this morning in Germany....the German government now says that at some point in July....the registration of ONE-million E-cars (battery-run) will occur this month (having started a decade ago).

Does this include plug-in hybrids as well?  Well....yeah.  For 2020, around 200k hybrids were newly registered in Germany, with 194k pure battery-cars.

If you did the math and calculated the spiral....2020 was the BIG year of the past ten years with selling of E-cars/hybrids.

There are four questions to ask here:

1.  Are hybrids and E-cars selling almost one-to-one?  Yes, and it wasn't that way if you go back to 2018/2019 numbers.  Prior to 2018....the numbers to either....weren't much to brag about.

2.  The goal of reaching seven to ten-million E-cars/hybrids by 2030?  It's an actual government goal.  The 2021 situation is shaping up to suggest they might reach seven million by 2030.  How many cars in general are registered presently in Germany?  Grand total of 47-million-plus.

3.  Are the sales evenly distributed around Germany?  No one is collecting data like that, and I might go and suggest that in highly urbanized areas (like Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich)....it's a much higher percentage than what you'd see in smaller rural regions around the country.  

4.  Is the hydrogen development continuing and threatening the E-car discussion?  Well....yeah....you can't help but notice this continues.  The fact that Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes put all their money into the E-car business?  This stands out making you wonder if 2030 arrives, and half the consumers prefer a hydrogen vehicle solution.    

This Baerbock 'Scandal'

 We are about a week into the Baerbock plagiarism episode and various news journalists are analyzing her candidate potential (Green Party Chancellor candidate).

You can basically say four things about this scandal:

1.  Going out to publish a book on your 'ideas' about four months before an election is risky.  You'd expect plagiarism experts, more senior Green Party members, and a journalist or two....to review the book before release.  In this case, you don't get the impression that happened.

2.  Admitting the 14-odd mistakes in the 240-page book?  No....Baerbock has avoided admitting a mistake.

3.  Are any of these ideas explored in the book totally her ideas?  Well....you'd assume so.  But at this point, it's a difficult assumption to make.

4.  Is plagiarism a reason to force a candidate into quitting?  It's a question that is difficult to answer.

Still front-page news?  Oh yeah....you can go to any of the normal ten news sources that you'd use, and they all still talk about it today (Saturday) on their top ten issues (front-page).

Are there Green voters who are unhappy with this whole story?  I would take a wild guess that 10-percent are disgruntled about this story, and probably a quarter of all Green Party voters in Germany weren't that pro-Baerbock even before she was announced as the candidate for the party.  

As for this leaving the front-page?  I would suggest by the end of next week....it's moved to page five, and mostly just laughed about by the other parties.  

8 Million Euro Robbery

 It's not front page news yet....but it should be there by Sunday.  

A robbery occurred....at a money-transfer company, in the Bremen area (north Germany).  So what the cops say is that one gal (German, of Turkish descent....28 years old) who was an employee....walked out with 8-million Euro in cash.

One person robbery?  Well....most folks connected to the investigation think she had help.  But so far, from the circle of friends that she had....nothing.

The van?  That hasn't been found yet (yesterday was third day since the event).

Her folks living in Turkey?  There is some idea that she'll leave Germany, and head to Turkey.

Planned out?  I read through the news piece, and they covered several aspects of the effort.  I would suggest that she spent at least a year planning this out, and she might be smarter than the cops suggest.

Leaving the country?  I would have been ditching the van within 30 minutes, and using some alternate form of transportation to cross the border as quickly as possible.  Destination?  Probably Macedonia.  With a fake passport, you could easily hide out at some resort for months, and then build up a lifestyle there. 

The police seem to think she'll be found shortly....I'm not so sure.  

New German Tax-Fee for Deliveries to Your Home?

 Yes.  Roughly six Euro per package.

The deal is if this package comes from beyond the EU, you pay the fee.  The countries that we might be talking about....triggering the fee?  US, China, Switzerland, and the UK.

Likely to peeve a number of folks?  If you order regularly from Amazon, I'd take a guess that more than 50-percent of the items originate from China.  If you add the 6-Euro fee....it's not the cheapest product anymore.

I sat and pondered over this.  Maybe once a year, I buy something from the UK....maybe forty-percent of what I buy via Amazon is Chinese-produced.  

More tax revenue?  Oh, that's very obvious....it'll shock some Germans and they will start to evaluate the Chinese product more closely.  

Dead Zone Story

 There's a term occasionally brought up in Germany.....called Funklochrepublik.

Basically, it means 'radio hole republic', or  basically meaning a dead zone for use of cellphones.  

A fair number of Germans will tell you that they live in such a valley or region.  The number?  It varies upon who is telling the story.

Typically, it's a highly ruralized region, with 'hills' or mountains.  

I noticed this morning...the Telefonica Deutschland CEO saying that by the close of 2024....NOT a single dead zone will exist.  A lot of this enthusiasm goes to government programs to fund reception into the dead zones.

A big day, if it occurs?  I would suggest that the Chancellor probably will show up in the final village, and hype this to a five-star level. 

Plagiarism Soap Opera

 This book 'scandal' with Annalena Baerbock (Green Party Chancellor candidate) continues on.

Basic facts?  The plagiarism 'hunter' suggests around 14 issues in Baerbock's new book (it's been out for about ten days now).  If this had been just one or two....the plagiarism chatter would be minimum.  The suggestion is that these comments in the book were her ideas....when they were really suggested by others.

The fact that public forum TV shows from ZDF and ARD are shutdown for summer vacation right now, and the EM soccer business is the number one discussion topic presently?  Yeah, so this is not getting five-star coverage.  You can probably walk into a pub and bring up the subject, and more than half only know there's some kind of scandal with Baerbock, but they can't cite any facts.  

Will Baerbock just continue on?  I would suggest that when the polls come out next week, and if she drops three points.....there will be some emergency meeting of the Green Party, and she might be persuaded to drop out....handing the mission over to Robert Habeck (for most of 2020, he was considered the primary guy for this campaign).  If there is only a one-point drop in the polls....they might just continue on with Baerbock.

Is this all a big deal?  For the regular working-class voters?  No.  Plagiarism in the German news media and social media over the past twenty years.....has become a major deal.  I'd suggest for any German politician writing a book today....to hire up a plagiarism-hunter to review the book before publishing and save yourself hassle.

Train Story

 Our regional public TV folks (HR) did a report this morning on public buses and trains since the Covid era started, and it's rather bad news.

The Hessen state situation on income from the bus/train business....is missing around half-a-billion Euro (roughly 650 million dollars). 

Making this up?  Well....you'd assume the state will take some of it's money.

But here's the dilemma.....the rest of 2021, all of 2022, 2023 and 2024?  They are suggesting that the normalization business will NOT occur.  So to keep the whole mess going at tip-top rate.....the state would have to throw in 300-plus million Euro a year?  Yeah, that's the basic suggestion behind the whole story.

What really happened here?  A lot of Germans (especially retirees like myself)....used to take frequent trips/excursions, and the train made it very simple (cheap rates were always possible).  I would suggest some people have taken back to trips in the past couple of months, but this 'fear' is continually there.

A Curious Covid-19 Dilemma

 So, down in Bavaria....there's a political party that is a partner to the CSU, in the coalition.  It's the Freie Wahler (Free Voter) Party.  Their regional boss is Hubert Aiwanger, and because of the agreement worked out in the coalition....he's the Deputy-Minister President (meaning the number two guy of the Bavarian government, after Markus Soder).

Well....it came up this week....Aiwanger has NOT accomplished the Covid-19 vaccination.  It's public knowledge at this point.

Soder reaction?  Fairly direct, he wants Aiwanger to get with the program, or 'justify it'.

If I were to qualify Aiwanger's successes or criticisms....he earns some respect (he got the Bavarian state government to dump the street tax on renovation to streets) and he is disliked because of direct negative comments that he has made on migrants coming into the county.  

As for the vaccination situation?  From the whole cabinet underneath Soder....Aiwanger is the only one without the vaccination.  I suspect that he's gearing up for a challenge.  

As for the state numbers presently?  Bavaria reports around 52-percent of folks have a minimum of the first shot.  

Could Aiwanger get fired?  No.  The worst that could come at this point....Soder does some stupid crap, and suddenly the Free Voter Party vacates the coalition, and triggers another election to occur.  I'm guessing Soder doesn't want to create that type of mess.  He might try to suggest anyone on the cabinet who doesn't do the vaccination....has to do a PCR test to attend meetings.