Germany Rewarded For Not Living Up To Agreement

April 14, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Defense, Germans, Germany, Lloyd Austin, NATO Leave a comment

Do you remember? Way back when, many presidents ago, when Germany promised to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense?

The Germans don’t either.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Tuesday that the US military will increase its presence in Germany, recommitting the US to the NATO alliance in a reversal from the previous administration’s plans to withdraw troops from the country.

The US will permanently station “approximately 500 additional US personnel in the Wiesbaden area” of Germany and will be on the ground “as early as fall,” Austin said during a news conference in Berlin.

“This planned increase in US personnel underscores our commitment to Germany, and to the entire NATO alliance,” he added.

We’re Not That Efficient

March 29, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings Tags: COVID-19, Efficiency, German, Germans, Germany, Pandemic Leave a comment

Honest. It’s all a big misunderstanding or something. A stereotype.

Yeah, Germany. Chill. We know already. It’s particularly noticable these days but we recognized this a long time ago. Loser.

German efficiency: The roots of a stereotype – Germany has a reputation for getting things done in an efficient manner, even despite evidence to the contrary. Efficiency has played an important historic role in Germany — though not always a positive one.

“Confidence became arrogance, orderliness became mean-spirited pedantry, and the execution of one’s duties became pure inhumanity.”

Roll Over And Die With Style

March 24, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Dependency, Energy, EU, Gerhard Schroeder, Germans, Germany, Nord Stream 2, Russia, Vladimir Putin Leave a comment

It’s as easy as climbing stairs.

The Banana Republic’s Secretary of State may pretend like his country will see to it that Nord Stream 2 isn’t completed but it’s just empty posturing that won’t have any consequences and the Germans know it. Just like Vlad Putin and everybody else.

Germany is pushing for the pipeline’s completion, despite sustained U.S. opposition over more than a decade. The United States fears Russia could use Nord Stream 2 as leverage to weaken EU states by increasing dependency on Moscow.

“President (Joe) Biden has been very clear, he believes the pipeline is a bad idea, bad for Europe, bad for the United States, ultimately it is in contradiction to the EU’s own security goals,” Blinken said as he met NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

We’re From The Berlin City Government

March 10, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Building, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Housing, Rent Control, Rents, Socialism Leave a comment

The “red-red-green” city government. And we’re here to help.

A disaster foretold – After a year, Berlin’s experiment with rent control is a failure. Rents may be down, but so is the supply of homes.

”I WORRY ABOUT Berlin,” says Rolf Buch, a born and bred Rhinelander. The chief executive of Vonovia, Europe’s biggest residential-property firm, thinks that the city’s policy of capping rents has achieved very little good, but caused severe collateral damage. Even if the federal Constitutional Court declares the rent cap unconstitutional in the next few months, as many expect it to do, Berlin will not go back to the status quo ante. Protests are here to stay, Mr Buch reckons.

Germany Extends Coronavirus Lockdown To The Year 2525

March 3, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Angela Merkel, COVID-19, German, Germans, Germany, Lockdown, Pandemic, Regulations, Restrictions Leave a comment

Where everything you think, do, and say, is in the pill you took today…

Germany’s national government and states are set to extend the COVID-19 lockdown by three weeks, to March 28…

According to the draft text, up to five adults from two households would be allowed to gather from March 8, with up to 10 adults allowed in areas with low infection rates. Under current rules, each household can only socialize with one other person.

The German government is also expected to appeal to citizens to avoid domestic and foreign travel over the Easter period.

Current lockdown measures have been credited with helping bring down daily new infection numbers.

However, experts last week warned that the declining infection rate had stabilized and even started climbing slightly, with growing concerns about the spread of new virus variants.

The number of coronavirus cases in Germany went up by 3,943 to 2,451,011, according to figures released early on Monday by the country’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. COVID-linked fatalities went up by 358, to 70,463 in total.

We’re From Your Leftist Government

March 2, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Expropriation, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Rent Control, Rents, Socialism Leave a comment

And we’re here to help.

As usual, everything Berlin’s “red-red-green” city government touches turns to Scheiße. As usual, the media clones pretends that this is somehow news.

Berlin’s Rent Controls Are Proving to Be a Disaster – A year ago, the leftist government of Germany’s capital region imposed central planning on the city’s housing market. That was a bad move.

A year ago, a rent cap took effect in the city that was unprecedented in Germany. For all apartments built before 2014, rents were frozen at whatever they were on Jun. 18, 2019. Tenants in those units can also force landlords to lower rents defined as “excessive…”

These data confirm what economists had warned about — and what’s been observed in other cities that dabbled in rent controls, such as San Francisco or Cambridge, Massachusetts. The caps represent a windfall to one group of tenants: those, whether rich or poor, who are already ensconced in regulated apartments. Simultaneously, they hurt all other groups — especially young people and those coming from other cities — by all but shutting them out of the market.

But China Is Germany’s Friend

February 24, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings Tags: Activists, China, German, Germans, Germany, Hong Kong, Intimidation, Propaganda Leave a comment

And can do no wrong. And friends don’t intimidate Hong Kong activists on other friend’s soil.

And all that.

China has tried to intimidate Hong Kong residents living in Germany since pro-democracy protests broke out in the city two years ago, the German interior ministry said in a letter to a lawmaker published on Tuesday.

The letter, sent to the head of parliament’s human rights committee, Gyde Jensen, in response to a request for information on the subject, could add to pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to take a firmer line toward China over human rights.

“Since the start of the protests in Hong Kong, increasing attempts by Chinese state actors in Germany to influence public opinion in favour of the Chinese government as well as actions against supporters of the protests have been identified,” the ministry said in the letter, first published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and reviewed on Tuesday by Reuters.

“I am unfortunately sceptical that the mechanisms used by our security agencies are sufficient to effectively protect those affected.”

PS: By the way, there is no Chinese virus in Germany either. There is a “British mutation” of the Chinese virus that came from China but isn’t a Chinese virus but there is no Chinese virus per se.

Infectious Number Variants Increasing Numbers More Infectiously

February 22, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19, German, Germans, Germany, Mutations, Numbers, Pandemic, Statistics, Variants Leave a comment

COVID numbers in Germany seem to have mutated and are now on the rise again. Thank goodness. They had been dropping for weeks.

Otherwise everybody would have to start earning a living again. I know, let’s compromise. We’ll send all the kids back to school.

Germany’s COVID infections rise again – The increase comes just as schools are scheduled to reopen. The rise has been driven by new, more-infectious variants of the coronavirus.

The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases reported 7,676 new cases on Sunday, up 1,562 from one week ago. The key seven-day incidence rate increased to 60.2 across the country, up from 57.7 a day earlier.

The Rest Of The World Isn’t Cooperating

February 18, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Brown Coal, Coal, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Nuclear energy, Poland Leave a comment

That’s because the rest of the world is the real world, Germany.

You’ll get used to it eventually. You’ll have to.

Germany concerned about Poland’s nuclear energy plans – The Polish government wants to start producing nuclear energy in 2033 and has agreed to deals with the US and France. But Germany is increasingly alarmed by its neighbor’s energy plans.

Nuclear reactors are considered by many to be the perfect solution.

It’s Not A Threat

February 16, 2021 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Autos, Berlin, Cars, E-Autos, Electromobility, Factories, German, Germans, Germany, Gigafactory, Tesla Leave a comment

Tesla already has disrupted everything.

Tesla’s Factory Threatens To Disrupt German Auto Industry. The Germans are playing catch-up now. Scheiße happens. The innovator always leads.

This is a lucrative business for Tesla. The company made $3.3 billion in the past five years from 11 states in the U.S. that, like the EU, force automakers that can’t meet emissions reduction goals to buy credits from companies like Tesla. But this revenue stream promises to run dry in the coming years as EU automakers ramp up their electric vehicle fleets. But because Tesla’s entire fleet is electric, Birgit Dietze of IG Metall, Germany’s auto workers union, says the company is already ahead of its German competitors.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Heconomy