New poll/survey done....vast amount of Germans DON'T believe that the federal government can guarantee a secure and stable pension. Most are saying they will have to augment/upgrade their savings.
Skepticism? In a massive way.
Doesn't matter about genders, age groups or even income brackets.
The gap between men and women....almost 300 Euro a month difference. That's also adding to the chatter.
I commented about this 2 days ago...Overath (up in the far NW of Germany)...cancelling the city (21k residents) Christmas fest over the problem of lacking funds for security requirements.
Well....things have picked up and gotten more interesting. The city administration said they were not going to pay for the extra security required. The fest organizers said they could not cover the cost.
This AM....the city came back and oddly said...."According to the current assessment, there is no concrete threat to events in Overath."
Yeah....they assess zero threat.
Terrorism measures are deemed unnecessary.
Now....they do say....a wall exists already at this site....and direct vehicle access is impossible (I haven't seen the images....so I can't vouch for that).
Most cities in Germany are now in the final 10 days of planning, and operations would start to occur around the 3rd week of November.
1. Bundestag approved a bill to 'give' several billion Euro in a package....to offset costs going up for health insurance.
By late 2026....I expect this to occur again....the cost factor for individuals continues a upward trend.
The amusing thing? They are basically paying for the 'fund'....with tax-money....so it's still personal money in a way.
2. Some discussion going on....pension out-flow for Germans....for a fair sum....is crap.
So the Bundestag is discussing a multi-year (10 years) package....adding up to 480 billion Euro. Where the money would come from? Unknown.
Figure from 2024.....says 19.6-percent of German retirees are NOT making enough pension to survive.
3. Ukraine found a Russian 'Orion' drone...mostly undamaged. Around 40-odd internal components were ID'ed....from the US....so questions are coming up.....how did they get to Russia?
4. Poll done with Germans....finding out that one German in seven....believes a dictatorship might be better than a democracy....to get things done.
5. Steel crisis summit to occur....with industry and coalition meeting.
Once upon a time, Norway got hyped-up on environmentalism, and E-buses. They wanted to go and make a massive buy of battery-powered buses. So they decided upon a Chinese brand....which had a lot technology built into the buses.
Contract was signed....800-plus bought, and delivered.
Buses are ultra modern....having GPS, maintenance alerts sent from the cloud, and a lot of data delivered to the Norwegian bus depot operations.
Then one day....someone asked....where was the data really? Well....NOT in Norway....it was in a cloud service operated by Amazon.....in Frankfurt, Germany.
Then the question came up....the bus company still having ultimate control over the buses? OH YEAH.
So the Norwegian guys tried to remove the SIM cards from the buses....thinking they could install their own SIMs. Well....nothing ran. They were geared to only run under the Chinese system.
Legal? Yeah....it appears that no one from Norway really grasped the technology involved or how it all worked.
What will likely happen? I believe they are mostly stuck....maybe the Chinese company will offer an upgrade....for tens of millions (that would resolve everything). But this started me thinking.....all these Chinese E-cars being sold in Germany. Are they in the same type situation?
I sat and read through a Saarland story today. The city of Saarbrucken has a train station, and for years....various residents grumbled that they needed a bike-parking spot near it....where they get off the train and ride to 'work' in the city.
So the city dreamed up a bike-parking 'building' (2-story). Cost? 3.5-million Euro....of which around 2-million is fed-money.
How many parking spots? Well...144. Yeah....it comes up to about 24k Euro per parking spot.
Who signed off on this? Unknown. City council had to have some say in the matter.
About 12 years ago....I was on a trip up to Leiden, Netherlands. There at the train-station....they had this huge bike-storage building....probably for 1,200 bikes. It was impressive. Cost? I doubt that they spent more than a million.
1. Watched an update on the Bahn (railway) numbers for October....nearly half of all long-haul high-speed trains were 'late' for the month....new record.
2. Germany's inspector-general for the Army....wants full-up conscription/draft.
3. A special police unit has arrested a 22-year-old Syrian guy in Berlin. Suspected of terrorism. Substances suitable for making explosives were apparently found during the search.
The motive? Islamist.
4. 2026 rise in public pension? Near 3.7-percent.
5. Number of Syrians living in Germany? N-TV did a piece....saying statistically...it's in the 971k range. How many would prefer to stay in Germany? Unknown. If I were guessing....from the 30-and-under age group....vast majority who've been here for a decade....have little desire to leave.
In this AM's news....the town o Overath (NW Germany, 27k residents) cancelled the city Christmas fest.
What it came down to....the law currently in place says that the city gov't itself...must cover security costs, and the town basically said....the cost was too much of a burden.
To cover the spring fest....the local private fest 'club' pulled out the Euro from their pockets, but admitted that took most all of the cash flow they had. They figured the city would step up and cover costs.....they were wrong.
Yeah, it was the first such cancellation, and I kinda expect more to occur.
Most all towns have a city 'square'....mostly designed for market operations....once or twice a week. Oddly enough....none of these market-days show extra protection (I can vouch for twenty-odd cities where I've been in their local market (here in Hessen, and the Pfalz).
What cities mostly do for terror-protection? Most have gone to concrete 'blocks' (the size of four mini-refrigerators) to block the square, with one security guard at each point who could untie the blocks if fire-trucks needed to enter. So a town the size of Wiesbaden....would have five 'points'. On top of that....you'd have extra cops on duty and dispatched....probably six to eight roaming in 2-to-3 man-patrols.
I have no idea of the cost level....but would assume....for a small square with two entry-points, with guards/security....for four weeks...you'd have talk about 40k Euro minimum.
This Christmas terror thing? This started in Berlin in 2016....with 16 deaths. Prior to that...other than roaming police, no one had a necessity to worry about dying in the middle of a Christmas market.
A politically charged thing for AfD now? Well...yeah, I would imagine locally in Overath now....the AfD will talk alot about this, and hype the threat to society. For some mayors and city councils....they might have leaned toward refusing to pay for the extra security, and now realize that more votes locally...will shift toward AfD, if they cancel their fest.
Yeah, it will be a topic of conversation for the week.
I asked Grok/AI....since the 1990s....what's happened to folks to make them seem either stupid, confused, or illogical. So Grok gave me:
Information Overload and Digital Media: The rise of the internet and smartphones (especially post-2000s) has flooded people with information. Social media platforms, starting with early sites like MySpace and exploding with Twitter (now X), TikTok, Facebook, and others, prioritize short, attention-grabbing content. This can reduce attention spans and critical thinking, as people skim rather than deeply engage. Studies suggest average attention spans dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds by 2015, though these metrics are debated.
Echo Chambers and Polarization: Algorithms on platforms like X amplify content that aligns with users’ existing beliefs, creating echo chambers. This can make nuanced discussion rare and reinforce simplistic or extreme views, which might be mistaken for confusion or lack of intelligence. Since the 1990s, political and cultural polarization has grown, with Pew Research showing U.S. partisan divides widening significantly by 2020.
Decline in Education Quality (Perceived or Real): Some argue education systems have prioritized standardized testing over critical thinking since the 1990s (e.g., No Child Left Behind in the U.S., 2001). Others point to reduced funding for public schools or a shift away from teaching media literacy, leaving people less equipped to navigate complex information. However, global literacy rates have risen, so this perception may reflect higher expectations rather than actual decline.
Cultural Shifts and Anti-Intellectualism: The 1990s saw the start of reality TV and celebrity culture, which often glorify sensationalism over substance. This trend, amplified by social media influencers, can create a perception that superficiality trumps expertise. Public distrust in institutions (media, academia, science) has also grown, with Gallup polls showing confidence in higher education dropping from 57% in 1990 to 36% by 2020.
Cognitive Overload and Mental Health: The pace of modern life—24/7 connectivity, economic pressures, and constant notifications—can lead to decision fatigue and mental fog. Anxiety and depression rates have climbed since the 1990s, with WHO data indicating a 25% global increase in mental health disorders by 2020, potentially affecting clear thinking.
Misinformation and Disinformation: The internet democratized information but also enabled the spread of false narratives. From 1990s chain emails to modern deep fakes, misinformation exploits cognitive biases, making it harder for people to discern truth. A 2018 MIT study found false information spreads six times faster than truth online.
I paused over the answer...it fits easily for the US, the UK, and Germany.
There's hardly a day that passes where I don't find 10 examples of misinformation/disinformation, perceived decline in pure facts, and information overload. It's rampant in the US....rampant in the UK and seeming to take off here in Germany.
In a lot of cases....we seriously want to believe in something....but five minutes into the orientation...hitting the mute-button...realizing there were some made-up bogus facts included in the story.
