Big Sister Assures Germans That 47-Percent Price Hike Actually Not Such A Bad Thing If You Think About It

Not.

Worried about grassroots unrest after Germany’s electrical grid operators announced they were nearly doubling the charge consumers will pay to finance subsidies for renewable energy as Germany phases out nuclear power, Big Sister herself has reacted boldly and decisively by going into hiding and pretending as if none of this were really happening.

Long used to this tactic, worried German consumers were assured, sort of, as they will now be paying an additional 60 euros per year, “taking overall add-on power taxes up to about 185 euros.” But that’s just the start, of course.

Sheesh. Why do Germans see everthing energy turnaround-related so negatively these days? You know, like as in black? Or like as in blackouts, I should say?

“The costs for consumers and industry of the electricity price charge for renewable energy has risen to an unbearable degree.”

Phase-Out Fizzling Out

Support for Germany’s Atomausstieg (nuclear phase-out) ain’t what it used to be, it seems. And it seems to have something to do with Geld (money), or something. With reality, in other words.

According to an Emnid survey, 77 percent of German voters asked say it is very important that energy costs remain affordable while only 53 percent care if the nuclear phase-out succeeds or not.

Welcome back to the real world, volks, I mean folks. Hey, you are here in Germany after all. And there is a clearly discernable pattern here. Once the first wave of hysteria is over, it always goes back to es darf eben nichts kosten (OK, but only as long as it doesn’t cost anything).

Für sie ermittelte Emnid auch, dass zwei Drittel der Bürger maximal 50 Euro pro Jahr mehr für Strom zahlen wollen.

BEA-EADS-RIP

Massive political resistance or pure economic theory? Or both?

“From an economic perspective, this should of course be avoided. Pure economic theory would say that the state should stay out of it and leave the market alone.”

“The massive political resistance was ultimately too great to overcome.”

Romney Still Bad

Germans weren’t fooled one minute by Mitt Romney’s impressive performance during the first presidential debate (just see photo below).

And now they are being reassured by German Presseorgane (press organs) that the sudden, completely unexpected and, well, near miraculous drop in the American unemployment rate to 7.8% will ensure that the right guy (as in left guy) will get re-elected after all.

Alles wird gut (everything will fall into place). Alles wird gut… Oder?

Noch nie wurde ein US-Präsident bei einer Arbeitslosenquote über acht Prozent wiedergewählt.

Electric Cars Have Already Reached A Whopping 0.01 Percent Of All Registered Cars In Germany

That’s some, uh, 4,600 vehicles. At this rate, the German government’s plan to have 1 million electric cars on the road by 2020 will be reached easily.

Or maybe not. Because those pesky German consumers still haven’t got the message and think that these babies are too expensive and don’t have a long enough range to make them attractive as, you know, as cars.

So that’s why the German government, flexible as it is, has now said that their goal of 1 million electric cars by 2020 (set last year) has now become a goal of 600,000 electric cars by 2020. I can’t wait to see what next year’s goal for 2020 will be like.

Damn. I’m impressed. This German Energiewende (energy turnaround) is getting easier and easier to reach all the time.

“If we don’t create incentives, then the whole thing is going to fail,” the Green party said in a statement.

Make Embargo Not War

And make a killing with illegal nuclear technology exports to Iran in the process.

Here’s German pacifism at its finest: Nuclear technology for Germany? Have you gone mad!? German nuclear technology exports for Iran? Let’s talk.

Recent arrests suggest that Germany remains a hub for sales of prohibited supplies to Iran that are being used in Iran’s nuclear program. Illegal exports are undermining Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pursued an embargo policy in order to prevent a possible war in the Middle East.

“Germany will do everything that it can to ensure that trade with Iran will not simply seek out new routes.”

Germans Concerned That Obama Maybe Could Might Not Be Reelected Doch Nicht (After All) Perhaps

Germans everywhere are all aflutter these days at the prospect of their United States President maybe not being automatically reelected after all, like which ought to be selbstverständlich (understood) or something but isn’t irgendwie (somehow).

German political scientists have namely just discovered that the unemployment rate in the US of Obama is well over 8 percent (and has been during the entire Obama administration), poverty levels are way up (3.6 million more Americans live off state support than before he entered office), the rate of founding new companies is at a thirty year low, government spending and debt have risen to incredible levels and the economy will simply not kick into gear, with no recovery or White House plan to change any of this in sight (and with no George W. Bush in sight to blame anymore, either).

Otherwise though, Obama is still the perfect guy for the job. So alles wird gut (everything will fall into place), they HOPE (way cool slogan from somebody a few years back).

Gouverneur Martin O’Malley geriet in Verlegenheit. Ob es den Menschen besser gehe als vor vier Jahren, wollte ein Reporter von dem demokratischen Gouverneur Marylands wissen. “Nein”, hatte O’Malley geantwortet.

Grass Caught Smoking Grass Again

After basking in the glory of his warmly received and highly acclaimed anti-Israeli poem in April, Germany’s Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass just can’t seem to help himself and has published yet another poetic work criticizing Israeli policy.

In his latest magnum opus, he praises, among other things, “A Hero in Our Time,” Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison for espionage after betraying his country’s nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times of London.

By absoulte sheer amazing coincidence, Grass just released this work in a new book of poems yesterday appropriately entitled “Eintagsfliegen” (One-Hit Wonders) and in no way intended or intends to bring any unwarranted attention to himself and/or said book which can now be purchased online or at a bookstore near you.

And please remember: This is not, never has been nor never will be  anti-Semitic abuse. Enlightened Germans (and all Germans are) don’t do that kind of stuff (anymore). This is freakin’ German Nobel Prize-winning author Gunter Grass we’re talking about here, people. For crying out loud.

In 2006, Grass admitted in an interview that he had joined the Waffen-SS as a teenager at the end of World War II, and was accused at the time of having hidden the truth for decades while at the same time pointing the finger at others for hiding their Nazi past.

European Subsidies Not Enough For Airbus

Now they need American ones, too.

Brussels on Thursday sought WTO approval for trade sanctions against Washington worth $12 billion a year.

“On the one side we have $90 billion (70 billion euros) of illegal financing of Airbus by the EU and on the other side we have $3.0-$4.0 billion for Boeing.”

Nothing New And Nothing Improved

That tired old SPD.

With three tired old SPD guys trying to decide which one of them will have to be the one tired old SPD guy who will have to be the contender in next year’s election against the ridiculously popular Angela Merkel.

So like one of them, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, threw his hat into the ring yesterday, sort of.

His angle? Eat the banks. Split their investment and retail units and have them create their own rescue fund and make them be good and nice again like they used to be in the past (I guess) als die Welt noch in Ordnung war (when the world was still in order).

Been there, done that. Yawn already. Bring out the next stooge and let’s get him over with, too.

“Banks are service providers and not betting shops.”