Here’s more government in action for you, folks. German Beamte (civil servants). You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them (it’s verboten).
A retiring German public servant has signed off from work by emailing his 500 fellow staff to tell them that he had not done anything for 14 years.
The 65-year-old’s final words in the job were to crow over colleagues and say he had earned more than £600,000 without lifting a finger.
“I do not wish to say anything else.”
Traditional Kneipen (neighborhood pubs) are dropping like Fliegen (flies) these days in Germany.
The latest statistics indicate that their number has dropped nationwide from 48,000 to 36,000 since 2001.
But thank goodness Berlin and Berliners are standing up to buck the trend. While the number of Kneipen in other cities like Hamburg has dropped 48.1 percent during this period, the number of new Kneipen in Berlin rose 95.8 percent. Damn. You can’t set the bar much higher than that.
“Mit dem Wirtshaus verschwindet eine Einrichtung mit hohem sozialen und kulturellen Stellenwert aus den Gemeinden.”
The FDP (Free Democratic Party) may now be fighting for its very survival again in Germany, but this is certainly nothing new. They have always had it tough here, and with good reason: They are the only classical liberal (as in free market) party to be found here for miles around.
The astounding thing about the FDP is that they can even get any votes at all in Germany. Terms like “free market” and “privatization” make most Germans cringe. And if they absolutely positively have to use bad words like that, they prefer more watered-down terminology like “Soziale Marktwirtschaft” instead, an imaginary German construction promising “a middle path between socialism and laissez-faire economic liberalism.” Socialism, in other words.
Anyway, with a big state election coming up in North Rhine-Westphalia next month (end of the month?), the FDP is now pulling out its big guns, as little as they are. Or at least one or two FDP politicians are. One guy called Frank Schäffler, for instance, has seriously suggested a radical program change to include “the elimination of all state aid and the partial privatization of the state-run public broadcasting services ARD and ZDF” in Germany. The key words here are “in Germany,” folks.
Is this guy a visionary or just plain deranged?
Dream on, FDP. But please, keep on dreaming.
„Mehr Mut zu Recht und Freiheit“
This would be funny if wasn’t so funny. Where do we want to go broke today? Q-Cells is now the fourth major bankruptcy in the German solar industry sector of late and although they are sure to have made a lot of dumb mistakes themselves, they certainly couldn’t have gone bankrupt “this well” without the German government’s relentless and merciless help.
It’s all about drugs, subsidy drugs. And once these subsidy drugs had been administered – in this case promoting wonderful and environmentally friendly solar technology for the good of all German-kind (in a country where sunshine is still a news item) – most of these companies failed to wean themselves from their reliance upon them and made some bad business decisions as a result (decisions they wouldn’t have made if they had been clean).
In the meantime, Asian competitors in the real world learned to produce the solar technology cheaper (as usual) and, just to add a little insult to injury here, it turns out that the German government helped the Chinese solar industry with financial aid , too. Only they did this better than they did in Germany.
Then Berlin finally got tired of shelling out all this money back home and started reducing the dosage faster than the addicts could adapt to and, well, the rest is history, or Geschichte, if you prefer.
So what’s the moral of the story? Remember those nine most terrifying words in the English language: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
Somehow the German government must have lost sight of the fact that its policy in fact encourages the demise of Germany’s own solar industry. The development bank of the government-owned KfW group of banks supports China’s green industry with low-interest loans. Ironically, the German Investment and Development Company (DEG), also a subsidiary of KfW, is one of the financial backers of Chinese industry giant Yingli Solar.
And throw away the key. Those no good criminals. Those German tax collectors who have been trading in stolen Swiss goods.
Switzerland has issued arrest warrants for industrial espionage for three German tax collectors who bought (with German government approval) the bank details of German tax evaders in Switzerland.
“For Germany, the issue is one of tax fraud, leading the country to authorize three tax inspectors to buy leaked stolen data on tax evaders in 2010. This legally dubious approach wasn’t an issue domestically because of the common belief that the state was collecting its alleged due and it effects only ‘the rich.’ But in reality, because Switzerland has different laws, the officials acquired stolen property to use as evidence, and paid the thieves €2.5 million for it. Anyone who dismisses this as a trifle needs legal tutoring.”
“Just imagine how Germany would react were the Chinese government to buy automobile designs from German car company employees to speed up industrial development — with the argument that patent laws are too strong in the West.”
Damn. I always knew that I was ahead of my time when it came to saving our world as we know it, but up until last night’s “Earth Hour,” I honestly had no idea just how ahead of my time I was, I mean am.
I’ve been turning the lights out at night (when I go to bed) for as long as I can remember, and I’m as old as the hills.
So come on, people. Stop living in the dark and start turning off your lights now, too!
“Indem wir das Licht ausschalten, setzen wir ein Symbol für erneuerbare Energien weltweit.”
“Germany is a nation of grumblers.”
Wow. And this guy should know. He’s a German himself.
I mean, I knew that they were a nation of moaners and whiners and that they liked to complain and gripe and lament a lot and that they regularly deplore things and eat their hearts out bemoaning matters while greiving and bitching and moaning (as opposed to just moaning without the bitching part), but I honesly had no idea that they were grumblers, too. Hey, live and learn.
“Anyone who follows all the daily debates in Germany that are critical of capitalism and growth could come to the conclusion that we Germans don’t want to be successful anymore.”
Would you buy shampoo from this guy?
He’s big in Turkey, I guess.
“Why are you using woman’s shampoo if you’re not wearing a woman’s dress? Now there’s the hundred percent men’s shampoo Biomen. A real man uses Biomen.”
To protect the climate. And while we’re at it we’ll tax you Americans even more.
A “departure tax?” Then I’ll just stay here. Germany’s Air Transport Tax – somehow meant to save the climate but no one can explain to me just how this works – is penalizing American carriers by taxing them the maximum amount of 45 euros per passenger.
These carriers are now suing the country on the grounds that “Germany cannot arbitrarily close its budget gap on the backs of US airlines and their passengers, who already pay taxes at excessive rates. This is a short-sighted cash grab.”
Of course it is. But they’re going to keep on taxing us anyway. Americans don’t vote here.
Die kurzsichtige Maßnahme werde der deutschen Volkswirtschaft größeren Schaden zufügen als möglicherweise an Steuereinnahmen wieder hereinkomme.
