Schlecker Chaos

Across Germany, the word got out....Schlecker, the non-drug-store store is about to downsize drastically.  You can figure half the 6k shops will shut down and just over 15k employees will be let go.

For an American, Schlecker takes a brief moment to explain.  This was the miniature store in every small town and neighborhood in Germany....that sold everything a drug store sold, except drugs.  They had the shampoo, the soap, the various articles that you'd need for your beauty or your bathroom.

If you go back....this was a small enterprise that started up in the mid-1970s.  They would find a small shop in neighborhoods and hire up a couple of part-time ladies to run the basic shop.  You had usually two full-time folks to keep the books and ensure smooth operations.

There were a couple of observations that I could make over the operation.  I suspect around the 1990s....when real department stores started to pop up in most sizable cities.....that really cut into the business empire of Schlecker.  If you bought everything at the big store....why shop at the mini-shop?

The part-time pay scale?  Lousy, and a number of people often complained about this angle to the operation.  If you complained in front of the manager, then you tended to get booted out quick.  Over the past decade, a number of villages started to have major negative reviews of their local Schlecker because their favorite clerk got fired or terminated.  That didn't help the business angle much.

Finally, you come to the profit margin deal.  By the time that the big companies gave their best deal to the big stores.....I doubt if Schlecker could ever get much of a special cost deal.  With crappy profits, they were begging for closure.

While half the shops remain.....if I were a betting person.....I'd wager the remaining shops all close within a decade.

Germans and Fries

If you mingle with Germans on any street....there is the potential to buy Pommes Frites.    It's basically French Fries.  You walk up to a imbiss (a stand) and you buy this paper cone-like container with fries.  The typical difference between American fries and German fries?  Probably a greasier taste, which is generally more preferred after you get used to it.  But there is this other curious difference.

You generally have two containers which the imbiss will offer for your 'covering' of the fries....either ketchup or mayonnaise.  Don't get overly excited about the freeness of this....it's one of the few times that Germans don't charge you for either mayonnaise or ketchup (in a restaurant, they are always charged).

When I first saw this back in 1978, I was kinda puzzled by the mayonnaise offering.  I didn't really think that it was that great of an idea.  I tried it, and can say that it's ok....I'm still more of a ketchup guy.

The fat content between the greasy fries and the mayonnaise?  Well....it's best not to bring this up with a German.

The Driver's Change

When Americans used to arrive at their post or base in Germany....there was this driving seminar that you had to attend....to get your German license.  The chief thing that always amused me about the seminar....was the quickness that a guy could actually lose his license.

If you committed eighteen points in one year.....it was a pretty short conversation between you and the judge.  You had a chance to fight the last ticket, but if you couldn't defend yourself.....you actually lost your license for a while.

In all the time I spent in Germany.....I know of only one individual who did so by the point system.  There were several folks who did the DWI-routine, and lost their license easily that way.....but points were always a more difficult episode.

There's now talk of a revision to the driving code.  If this twist were accepted, then you'd have a higher chance of losing your license.  The eighteen points?  Gone.  The four-point tickets?  Gone, too.  You'd have eight points a year to max out with.  A serious speeding offense....would likely get you two points.  So it wouldn't take much to screw you over.

The folks who run this business....think that there'd be ten percent more folks losing their licenses each year.

What drives this?  For a number of years.....political folks, the auto clubs, and the cops have wanted some significant changes.  So the guys who run this business have tossed it all into a blender and come out with a drastic program.

My humble guess is that we will start to see an increase in people using public transportation.....because they lost their license.  You might also see more folks using scooters....hoping to get around their little problem in another fashion.  The impact here is that you might get a few more poor drivers off the road.  It's hard to say it we even notice this change in the end.

German "Help"

Germans often get to an emotional point on issues, and their general niceness comes out....sometimes shocking you to the extent of how they'd really like to help you.

This week, around 160 German finance folks got together, and acknowledge that they'd like to "help" Greece.  They have some fair knowledge of the overall situation in Greece, and things are screwed up.  They also are very aware of how Greeks (on average) avoid approximately 20 billion Euro (roughly $26 billion dollars) in taxes.  Greek hotels, restaurants, taxi companies, shipping companies, and virtually every type of business in the country....work at some angle to avoid paying their fair share.

For a small country of eleven million residents....20 billion Euro adds up.  If you compared that against the US....it'd amount to 600 billion dollars that misses the government revenue pot.

What the 160 German finance folks intend to do....is place themselves at the right levels of taxation....pull out the books....start visiting businesses and demand access....on the spot....of their records for the week, month, or year.  The Greek will get furious and refuse to deal with them.  The cops will come but refuse to do anything because it's not a real crime....in their eyes.  So months later, a Greek judge would order the books handed over, and by then.....they've been doctored enough to look puzzling but acceptable.

The German experts are probably right.  German companies know the rules pretty well.  If you avoid certain taxes, and the Finanzamt folks show up asking for the books.....you might as well hand them over.  There'll always be a Customs cop or two involved in this process, and they will have the authority to grab your books on the spot.

The Greeks have been playing this tax avoidance game for years, and gotten away with it.

The comical side of this is the friendly nature of the German finance guys.....the attitude of we want to help you....just let us look at your books.  I'm guessing Greeks will just push this another notch up on the furious scale about their German friends.  The finance guys will grin mostly about this offering....knowing they are fairly safe in being refused.

The Solar Story "Mess"

Over the last day or two....if you've been watching German news.....the solar energy story keeps coming up.

Here is the simple story.....the current government in charge (the CDU/CSU and FDP folks)....have put up this talking point idea (it's not approved yet)....to cut solar power subsides by approximately thirty-percent.  Naturally, some folks are very upset by these government subsides disappearing.

Based on comments in the Local....if you have solar panels up and supply juice to the grid....you would under the new plan.....get around 13.5 Euro cents to 19.5 Euro cents for a kilowatt hour.  All of this would be dependent on the time of day and seasonal variables of course.

So you get around to this whole subsidy thing and why the government guys might be right about changing the game.  The subsidy bucket of money amounts to 12 billion Euro.  With the amount of growth in the solar business....it is possible that maybe half of the bucket (6 billion Euro).....might be taken up by the solar subsidy episode.

The truth is that the 12 billion Euro were supposed to be for all renewable energy....not just for solar business.  So you come to this reality.....only three percent of the grid power....starts out from solar energy.  Yet, you end up with almost half the bucket of subsidy money going to a pretty small chunk of the entire power grid.

You'd think about this for a while and eventually come to this idea that help other renewable sources of power might be the better way to continue using the taxpayer's money.

A number of odd comments came out of the opposition discussion.  One Greeenpeace guy wanted everyone to know that ten thousand medium-sized companies were threatened and there might be well over 100k jobs lost in Germany.  I went looking for an explanation of these statistics, but no one in the media challenged the guy or laid out details of how 10k medium-sized companies were involved in this entire solar empire.

There are some odd factors to renewable energy which I came to realize in my time in Europe.  First, if you want to use windmills.....you need to be in regions that have a continual wind presence for the majority of the year.  If you only have 150 days of decent wind....your return on the windmill energy investment won't be worth anything.  In the US....you have three general regions where wind energy would pay off...both coasts, and a general path from Canada down toward Texas.  If you put up a windmill operation in Alabama or Ohio.....it'd still turn, but the amount of turn created wouldn't be at the same rate as one of these in Kansas or north Texas.

Another observation is that solar energy can be collected in every single location on the face of the Earth.  However, if you live in an area that is continually cloudy.....your return on your investment will not be the same as a solar operation in Tucson, Arizona.  Compare the Tucson investment against one in Bavaria.....and you'd notice that Bavaria just won't make the same amount of money as Tucson.

I'd humbly challenge the 100k jobs lost comment here, and the various other comments by the wide array of opposition folks.  The bucket of money ought to be wisely spent.  Just saying things need to continue on......as is.....probably isn't going to be the wisest idea.

American Humor in Germany

There are a handful of American shows that make it on German TV, and are appreciated.  I emphasize the word "handful".

From recent years....two comedies have landed major German audiences.....King of Queens, and Two and a Half Men.  For some reasons....Germans identify with Doug, Arthur and Carrie.  For Two and a Half Men....Charlie Sheen's character probably is readily identified by half the German youth population.

This week....a major German media group walked in and picked up the German rights to Anger Management (the new vehicle for Charlie Sheen).  For a untested project, this has turned into a major effort.  People are putting their cash behind the German broadcast rights for the show.  Usually....there's some history....some gauge to measure success of the first year of broadcast in the US.  In this case....no measurements.  Serious cash is being put down in anticipation of a major success....with a guy who has been a bit crazy at times.

The odd thing about the start-up of this series.....there's one hundred episodes arranged on the deal....if the initial audience reaction reaches a certain level.  It's an odd deal....which no one has seen much before.  German media companies tend to be more on the careful side.  Obviously, they must know something.

German Stores and Sundays

For decades, there was a clear understanding about German store hours.  You could extend your hours on one evening a week....past the 6PM line.  For weekends, you typically opened around 8AM and were closed by 1PM.  German stores wanted flexibility and more hours.  Eventually, they got enough political folks lined up and got evening hours extended to 8PM...even on Saturday.

A strange thing happened then.....more shoppers came into stores....with more money spent by consumers.  More stores hired more employees along the way, and some traditional ideas about shopping in Germany were tossed.

There is this other rule about Sunday shopping.  There are exceptions arranged by most states now.....that a couple of occasions a year, you can actually open a German store at noon, and run it to 5PM.  Most cities and regions allow two such Sundays a year.  A funny thing was discovered about Sunday shopping....folks spend money.  So the stores in Germany are hyping up an attitude about more Sunday openings.

You can go from state to state, from city to city, and there are discussions under way.  Frankly, most employees aren't interested in more store openings....even if it meant more employees for the company and more profit.  The political folks are a bit hyper on this issue because they would like to keep public support on their side.

So when the topic of Sunday openings comes up with your German colleague.....there are these simple facts that you ought grasp quickly.  Germans don't shop on Sunday typically.....but if you offered them the opportunity, they'd quickly become like Americans....browsing and buying.  Germans will talk about Sunday being a day of rest, but frankly.....if they knew of some special sale going on at a electronics shop on a Sunday.....they'd drive over to check it out.  Finally, a German will try to lay out America's forty-four faults in society....with America's 24-hour a day shopping frenzy bringing us down a notch.  The humble truth here.....Germans would do the same thing, if you offered them the opportunity.  They'd secretly like to be as faulty as America, but they just don't want to admit it.

Germans and Meth

For most Americans, there is this moment of reality that arrived....realizing that there is a serious issue with meth in various American communities.  You can go into any farming or rural area of the US today, and find meth.

For Germans....the reality of meth is starting to arrive as well.  One of the more active areas of production for the drug....is across the border into Czech territory.  An article this week, laid out the number of arrests in Hof, Germany....just over the border from Czech....for 2011, approximately 250 German dealers ended up being apprehended.  

The curious part of this article.....was the lead to the manufacturing circle....a group of Vietnamese guys.  Apparently, the Vietnam guys had this lucrative deal with cigarettes going on, before the cops all jumped onto their trade and brought the illegal smokes operation down.  So, they flipped over, and went into meth production.  One way or another, the Vietnamese gang was going to make money.  It was that simple.  

You take a high school kid with a bit of chemistry background, some simple materials, a tub-like device, and in a few hours....you manufacture meth.  The Vietnamese gang guys have figured out the economics of this, viewed the German potential for profit, and got themselves in a money-making operation.  

If you take the American model for meth growth, and toss it into the German system....it's a potential major problem.  And you likely hear more about this in the future.