Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Germany has approved more major weapons deals with the UAE, including deliveries of medium-caliber ammunition. The UAE is involved in a conflict in Yemen that has caused famine and humanitarian disaster.
That means export or trade surplus. In this case the German trade surplus, of course.
Also see: Böse Buben. That means bad boys.
Christine Lagarde (IMF) and Donald Trump may not have much in common at first glance but one thing they seem to agree upon is Germany’s trade surplus. That is, Germany exports more to, say, the USA than it imports from that country (same procedure with practically every other country Germany deals with, too). And it’s been like forever already.
So Germany, just in case you didn’t know it, you’re being a very bad boy.
Deutschland wird zum bösen Buben des Welthandels.
Germany’s Bundesverwaltungsamt (Federal Office of Administration), responsible for overseeing the lousy service traditionally inflicted upon defenseless German citizens by the crappy public service officials they administer so poorly, has expressed concern that the number of said officials is much too low to guarantee the continued level of awful service these citizens have become accustomed to and therefore insists that tons more of these losers be hired in the near future or sooner. Or else.
“That’s right,” said the only incompetent high-level and ridiculously overpaid official anybody could locate who wasn’t home playing sick or out getting a Kur (a well-loved “treatment” scam here). “Hire a whole bunch more of folks like us or the service gets even worse. Any questions?”
In der Verwaltung droht der Personalnotstand: Das befürchtet der Präsident des Bundesverwaltungsamtes Christoph Verenkotte und fordert ein “riesiges Einstellungsprogramm.”
And give it to the SPD, Left party, Greens, etc. They’ll give it to the poor later, right?
This is getting increasing more difficult to do in Germany, however, as a recent study reveals that the top ten percent of the working population (those who earn the most) already pay half of all income tax the country takes in.
And as recently reported, an average earner here already has to give up nearly half of what he earns. Sheesh. Crime just doesn’t pay anymore. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Robin Hoodlum kind of criminal, I mean.
Die Studie zeigt auch, wie stark Gering- und Durchschnittsverdiener durch Steuern und Sozialabgaben belastet werden. So zahle zum Beispiel ein Single mit einem Bruttogehalt von 1.940 Euro im Monat 46 Prozent Steuern und Abgaben. Ein alleinstehender Durchschnittsverdiener mit 3.250 Euro monatlich müsse 51 Prozent abführen, also mehr als jeden zweiten Euro.
A government spokesman for a country in which Nazi analogies are passed about daily like warme Semmeln (hot cakes) has explained to White House spokesman Sean Spicer that this is a really counterproductive and stupid thing to do.
The spokesman for the chancellor of said country then went on to explain that comments about chemical weapons Spicer had made comparing gas-happy Syrian President Bashar Assad to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler could never be a wise idea “because we in my country have been making comparisons like these for ages already, calling practically anyone who annoys us in the slightest way a Nazi, and yet we still can’t seem to figure out how pointless and senseless it is. Leads to nothing. A total waste of time. Believe me, I know. I do it on a regular basis myself. Like when that guy took the parking space I wanted this morning. It’s genetic or something. Not racial or anything, OK? Genetic.”
Die Bundesregierung hat sich zum Assad-Hitler-Vergleich von Trumps Sprecher Sean Spicer geäußert. So etwas führe “zu nichts Gutem”, sagte Regierungssprecher Seibert.
That means net pay from the gross. And gross is it ever. Only Belgium (think Land of the EU) does it better. Meaning worse, of course.
According to a report just published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Germany has the second biggest tax burden worldwide. And we’re talking about middle-income people here, people. Not millionaires or anything.
The OECD calculated each country’s tax wedge – the gap between what employers take home in pay and what it costs to employ them, including personal income tax and social security contributions. Germany had a tax wedge for single, childless workers of 49.4 percent, behind Belgium at 54 percent. That means nearly half of a single person’s income goes towards taxes and social security contributions in Germany.
Please remember this the next time somebody starts telling you again how wonderful everything over here in ze Europe is (“socialized medicine” and all that). There simply is no free Mittagessen (lunch). You can go broke eating free lunch over here.
„Die Belastung der Bürger ist deutlich höher, als uns bewusst war.”
Remember: Germans have more words for taxation than Eskimos have for snow.
Or with hypocrisy. Take your pick. In this case it’s both.
For a political party that wants no more gas/diesel-driven cars to be produced in Germany as of 2030, their talking head types sure seem to like the ones they can still get their sweaty little hands on.
A leading green politician lady was caught on film by the CDU competition as she got out of her CO2-belching Audi A8 Dienstwagen (official car) and into one of them there more correct kind of hybrid models – before driving off to an election campaign event.
The CDU guy who posted his stuff on social media wrote: “First have yourself driven to Dusseldorf in a big honking Audi A8 and then quickly jump into your waiting environmentally friendly hybrid car in the hope that nobody notices. Here’s to Green double standards!”
If I were her I’d just plead the fifth. Or tell everybody that I was suffering from performance anxiety, a very common ailment here.
„Kleiner Tipp an Frau Löhrmann: Beim nächsten Mal das Fahrzeug vielleicht besser in der Tiefgarage wechseln.“
That means “welcoming culture” and refers to the German willingness to accept refugees.
It is, of course, a Märchen (fairy tale), as a survey on Friday is now beginning to make clear and not really a great revelation for anyone who lives here, either.
A new study has revealed that a majority of Germans are unwilling to take in more asylum seekers. The country took in around 890,000 refugees in 2015. According to a representative survey conducted by the Bertelsmann foundation, 54 percent of the respondents said Germany had reached the limit as far as accepting asylum seekers was concerned. In 2015, the same survey showed 40 percent of people holding this opinion.
Let’s face it, Germans are fine and decent people but the German culture has never been a “welcoming culture” in that sense. That many Germans would like to believe that it is anyway speaks for their good will and good intentions but they know themselves that this simply isn’t true. Reality has a way of catching up with good intentions, the road to hell being paved with them, as we all know.
In einer am Freitag veröffentlichten Emnid-Umfrage im Auftrag der Bertelsmann Stiftung sieht eine knappe Mehrheit von 54 Prozent der Befragten Deutschland an seiner Belastungsgrenze angekommen. Vor zwei Jahren teilten diese Auffassung noch 40 Prozent.
Machines that tell you how to think (media machines) are old school. Now we’ve got machines that tell you how to vote, like the Wahl-O-Mat here in Germany.
Just fiddle with a few parameters and out comes your vote for you. The rest is history.
That there have been cases in which operators have never managed to get the “preferred” party to come out that they actually prefer is another story. They (whoever they are) are still working on the details.
Es soll jedenfalls schon Nutzer gegeben haben, die den Wahl-O-Mat Dutzende Male bedient haben. Und nie die Partei empfohlen bekamen, die sie tatsächlich präferieren.
German told their trust in newspapers soars to record level.
After being told that a total of 55.7 percent of respondents to a study said they trust the print press, a total of 55.7 percent of respondents to the study said they trust the print press, a drastic rise on the 45.7 percent of respondents who gave that response in 2015, they were told, and the highest level of trust since the survey was first conducted in 2000, somebody told them, too. Or so I’ve been told.
Noch nie seit über 15 Jahren war das Vertrauen in die Presse so hoch wie heute. Den deutschen Medien ist es gelungen, das in sie gesetzte Vertrauen zu stärken und weiter auszubauen.
Observing Hermann 