That means lead. You know, like in the polls? Before an election?
Here’s an example from the day before the election in UK: Boris Johnson’s Lead is Shrinking.
Vorsprung von Boris Johnson schrumpft.
Category Archives: Habitudes
Germany To Repay Customers Of Insolvent Thomas Cook
How nice of Germany to do that. But where does Germany get the money to repay them?
It’s no Kunststück (slight of hand), folks. I could repay customers of insolvent companies all day long too as long as I had somebody else’s money to repay them with. Just milk the taxpayer again, in other words.
Germany will give financial assistance to customers hit by the insolvency of Thomas Cook because the tour operator’s insurance cover has proved insufficient, it said on Wednesday…
Insurer Zurich’s (ZURN.S) liability is capped at 110 million euros ($121 million) but it has already registered claims worth 250 million and experts estimate total claims will reach 300 million to 500 million euros, ARD said.
A legal opinion commissioned by Zurich concluded that state liability is possible because the German government inadequately implemented a 2015 EU directive meant to ensure customers get their money back in the case of the insolvency of a tour operator, the report said.
“Damages that are not compensated by other parties will be settled by the federal government.”
German Of The Day: Transaktionssteuer
That means financial transactions tax.
And that means, as usual, taxing the little guy tying to get ahead while letting the big time speculators off the hook. All in the name of Social Justice. Or Social Democracy (SPD), if you prefer.
Germany Pushes Forward on European Financial Transactions Tax – Under a new blueprint for the tax, sent by Germany Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to the other governments on Monday and seen by The Wall Street Journal, anyone buying shares in large companies domiciled in those countries and with a market value of over €1 billion ($1.1 billion) will have to pay a minimum 0.2% tax over the transaction value…
Germany is under some time pressure to deliver an agreement since the government has already earmarked the expected proceeds to pay for higher state pensions for the poor starting in 2021. It expects revenues of about €1.5 billion a year from the tax.
Germans have more words for taxation than Eskimos have for snow.
The Rents Won’t Be the Only Things That Will Freeze
Building will come to a complete standstill in Berlin too.
But Berlin’s red-redder-green politicians (SPD, the Left Party, the Greens) don’t know anything about building (look at the state the city of Berlin is in). They can only tear things down. Oh, yes. And redistribute. They will redistribute for as long as it takes to get anybody who’s got anything to get out of town.
Berlin Builders Hit the Streets in Backlash Over Rent Freeze – The German capital’s government is trying to ease the burden on tenants after a property boom caused rents to double over the past decade. However, critics of the plan — including economists and large landlords — have said the only way to address growing demand for housing is to build more homes.
The rent-freeze legislation will start its passage through Berlin’s parliament this week and is expected to come into force in the first quarter of next year…
The city’s plans “threaten to cause considerable damage to both the housing market and Berlin as a whole,” IW institute economists wrote in a recent report for the Christian Democratic Union party, which is in opposition in Berlin and opposes the measures. Scrapping the plan is “urgently needed from an economic perspective to prevent wider damage to the Berlin economy,” they added.
The Scandal Nobody Wants To Talk About
Because it reveals the Media Brain Police for who they are.
Granted, this guy was a real artist but can you imagine the armies of lesser charlatans out there who furnish us with our news each and every day? No media bias or fake news here, right?
The furore surrounding Der Spiegel journalist Claas Relotius is back, with a book by the colleague who exposed him –
Fiction and non-fiction can feed off each other in unusual ways. In the winter of 2018, Germany was shaken by the biggest media scandal since the forged Hitler diaries, after it emerged that the country’s bastion of investigative journalism – DER SPIEGEL – had published stories by a reporter who had “fictionalised” his prize-winning articles with armies of invented characters. Now the “Relotius scandal” has gone into its second round, with the publication of a non-fiction book by the journalist who exposed his fraudulent colleague: a detective story about the search for truth in the era of fake news that makes a more gripping read than most novelists could have managed…
Before he was exposed, he had won the top prize for German reporters, the Reporterpreis, four times in six years. One judge praised his stories as jumping off the page “almost like literature”. He was in line for a promotion at Der Spiegel.
More Down, Down, Down, Down, Down
Just when you thought Germany’s SPD couldn’t sink any further…
The Genossen (comrades) figure out a way to do it. I never really believed that the Volkspartei (people’s party with a broad base) SPD could ever actually disappear into the sunset forever but now I’m just not so sure anymore.
Germany’s SPD slip in polls after choosing new leftist leaders – Support for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) has fallen after members last week chose as leaders a leftist duo who are skeptical about remaining in government with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, a poll showed on Saturday.
A Forsa poll put the SPD on 11%, 3 points down from a week ago and hitting a low last seen in June after previous leader Andrea Nahles quit due following the party’s worst-ever result in elections to the European Parliament.
You know the lyrics, folks. I’m going down. Down, down, down, down, down.
Please, Reduce Already
Germans in favor of ‘reducing reliance’ on US.
A new YouGov poll has found that a majority of Germans are in favor of reducing reliance on the US and increasing ties with Russia. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany cannot defend itself alone.
And good luck with those increased Russian ties!
Dull And Duller
Or: Non-Party Elects Nonentities To Non-Lead Them.
Does anybody out there remember the uncola? Doesn’t matter. I’m sure you get the idea. Germany’s SPD (Social Democratic Party) has just made the leap to unparty status. Or non-party, if you prefer. I do. Nobody can figure this out. These two came out of nowhere because that’s where they belong. How can I put it? They are sheep in sheep’s clothing. Dull? These two are so dull that either one of them, on his or her own, could make the perfect chairman of the bored. But two of them together? Like, at the same time? It’s just too much to take.
Two strong leftist critics of the coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives – Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken – won a vote for leadership of the Social Democrats on Saturday, possibly putting the country, Europe’s largest economy, at a political crossroads.
Their ascendancy raises the chances of an early election or a minority government if the SPD leaves the coalition, which could trigger political instability at a time when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the country’s third-largest party.
“I think it is good that the SPD has made a decision.” Loud yawn. “It paves the way to return to business. For the CDU it is quite clear: we stand by this coalition. We stand by this coalition on the basis that has been negotiated.”
Deportation German Style
When Germans say deportation they mean deportation. It’s just that deportation clearly means something else in German than it does in English. Even though it means deportation, I mean. And here I thought I spoke the language. Sheesh.
Germany: Thousands of migrants return after deportation, report says – Thousands of asylum-seekers in Germany have returned multiple times after deportation, according to a report in German media. Those with entry bans often serve a few months in jail or are not arrested at all…
There are nearly 5,000 asylum-seekers who have reapplied for asylum after being deported from Germany since 2012, according to the report, which cites official government figures. Some of the asylum-seekers willingly left Germany, knowing deportation was imminent. The then returned to German to make another application for asylum, according to the report.
German oddity 234: Germany is a country that now places the ugly security controls, bollards and heavily armed police it used to have on its national borders at Christmas markets and Volksfeste around the country instead.
A Positive Development
But nowhere near what the Germans pledged to do long, long ago.
Germany to match US contribution to NATO budget – From 2021, Germany will increase its contribution to the NATO budget to be in line with what the US pays. NATO officials hope the move will diffuse tensions surrounding the cost of maintaining the military alliance.
Gee. I wonder what – or who? – finally got the Germans to act?
Starting in 2021, the share of the NATO budget covered by Germany will increase from 14.8% to 16.35%, while the share covered by the US will decrease from 22.1% to 16.35%…
NATO officials hope the new agreement will alleviate some of the tension around the topic of NATO financing. US President Donald Trump has complained that the US covers more than its fair share of the costs for the alliance. He has demanded that other member states make good on their pledges to increase their NATO contribution to 2% of GDP by 2024 (pledged nearly twenty years ago), a goal that Germany will not reach.
Merkel on Wednesday vowed to reach the 2% mark by the “early 2030s.”
Observing Hermann 