Provide affordable housing for ordinary Germans?

That ought to be easy enough.

I mean, how many ordinary Germans can there be?

Chancellor Merz pledges affordable housing for ordinary Germans – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that the government wants to do more to make housing affordable for ordinary people again.

“Anyone earning a normal income in Germany should be able to buy a normal home,” Merz said at the Construction Industry Conference in Berlin.

“We are determined to … get things moving so that building in Germany becomes faster, easier and cheaper, enabling the average family in Germany to afford their own home as a rule,” Merz asserted.

World champions of misjudgement accuse Donald Trump of misjudgement

So I judge this to probably be another misjudgement.

Trump misjudged influence on Putin, German defence minister says – U.S. President Donald Trump misjudged his influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Germany’s defence minister said on Wednesday, after a phone call between the two leaders yielded no progress in Ukraine peace talks, prompting Europe to announce new Russia sanctions.

“I suspect he assessed his negotiating position incorrectly,” Boris Pistorius told the Deutschlandfunk radio broadcaster, following Trump’s now-abandoned efforts to pressure Putin into accepting an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

Well, which one is it you arrested?

King Peter I, the Son of Man or the Messiah?

Germany Arrests King Peter I, the Son of Man, the Messiah – Peter identified sources of frustration and indignity that might bother virtually any German: how one navigates banking, taxation, health care, law.

Last week, Germany arrested Peter Fitzek, 59, an anti-government figure also known as King Peter I, the Son of Man, the Messiah. Historically, attempts to arrest messiahs have met with mixed results, so to stay on the safe side, the Interior Ministry not only rolled up Fitzek and three conspirators but also shut down his whole operation, known as the Kingdom of Germany. Subjects of King Peter deny the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany and, over the past 13 years, have built up a counter-state with its own institutions. “In Germany, just like in the rest of the world,” he said, “We have a lot of problems,”

German of the day: Schneckentempo

That means moving at a snail’s pace.

But at least it’s still movement. In the right direction.

Germany drops opposition to nuclear power in rapprochement with France – Paris wins approval from Berlin to remove anti-nuclear bias in EU legislation, say officials.

Germany has dropped its long-held opposition to nuclear power, in the first concrete sign of rapprochement with France by Berlin’s new government led by conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Berlin has signalled to Paris it will no longer block French efforts to ensure nuclear power is treated on par with renewable energy in EU legislation, according to French and German officials.

Roots

Merz woos Trump with invitation to German ancestral village – The chancellor appears to want to appeal to the American president’s German ancestry in order to improve frayed relations.

Check out this pre-Trump hysteria film report about this village (Heinz came from here too). Start watching around 34:50. It’s positive. It’s friendly. Times (and attitudes) change.

Delusions of Grandeur V9.0

Version 9 as in nein as in it ain’t never gonna happen.

Aiming to strengthen the Bundeswehr to match the size and punch of a medium-sized American city’s police force…

Germany’s Merz vows to build Europe’s strongest army – “Our friends and partners also expect this from us, and what’s more, they are actually demanding it,” said the new chancellor.

Good thing the American pension system works

Only it doesn’t. None of them work.

It’s the 800-pound gorilla locked away in every country’s closet – for now.

Germany struggles to fix its pension system – Germany’s aging population is putting the country’s pension system under strain. The new Labor Minister Bärbel Bas has ruffled feathers with a proposal for how to fix it.

Good luck with that.