German Of The Day: Enteignung

April 7, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Apartments, Berlin, Building, Construction, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Language, Political Parties, Property, Property Rights, Rents, SPD Leave a comment

That means confiscation or dispossession. You know, like confiscating private property?

And the German Greens hold this to be denkbar – another cool German word meaning conceivable or possible.

After all, the world must be fair and if rising property rents in cities like Berlin – caused by city governments like Berlin (Social Democrats and Greens for decades) – are creating hardship for the 85 percent (!) of Berliners who don’t own property – the government does everything it can to discourage owning property here – then the government that created this mess will simply confiscate the private property of those currently developing new housing and… And what? Give it to the poor? Been there, done that. We all know how that turns out. And who foots the bill. Robin Hoodlums never learn. They have no intention of learning.

Thousands took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday in protest against rising property rents and called for properties of large-scale landlords with more than 3,000 houses to be taken over by the government.

“Das Grundgesetz sieht Enteignungen zum Allgemeinwohl ausdrücklich vor.”

German Of The Day: Abkühlung

April 5, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Economy, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Recession 1 Comment

That means cooling or cooling off.

You know, like German growth predicted to stall during 2019 in significant Abkühlung?

Germany’s economy could experience a “significant cooling” in 2019 and could see sharply lower growth this year, the country’s leading economic institutes have warned in a report compiled for Germany’s economics ministry.

Forecasts for German growth were revised significantly downwards in a ‘Joint Economic Forecast’ collated by several prominent German economic research institutes and published Thursday, with economists predicting a meager 0.8% this year.

This is more than one percentage point lower than a prediction for 1.9% made in a joint economic forecast in fall 2018.

“The long-term upswing of the German economy has come to an end.”

Germany Is NATO’s Biggest Freeloader

April 4, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Anniversaries, Defense, Defense Spending, Freeloading, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Military, NATO Leave a comment

That was a Washington Post headline, not mine.

There’s a German word for freeloader, by the way. Sounds worse in German, too.

As Nato commemorates its 70th anniversary in Washington this week, Germany seems to be labouring mightily to reassure the 29-member alliance that it will never threaten anyone militarily again — because it is in fact its own worst enemy.

How else can you qualify an ally that has announced it won’t be meeting its own pledge to increase defence spending to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2024, even when it has formally committed to a target of 2 per cent, like everybody else?

Eines kann man Donald Trump nicht vorwerfen: Dass er mit seiner Meinung hinter dem Berg halten würde.

German Of The Day: Migrationshintergrund

March 31, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Angela Merkel, Borders, German, Germans, Germany, Immigrants, Immigration, Integration, Language, Migrants, Unemployment Leave a comment

That means migrant or immigration background.

You know, like almost half of the unemployed in Germany have Migrationshintergrund? 46 percent, to be exact, sort of (answering this question at the employment office is not mandatory so the number will actually be higher). Back in 2013 it was 36 percent. Kind of a high percentage, don’t you think? But the talking heads in government and media don’t worry about something like this turning into a larger problem than it already is because they have been told, officially like, that “they can do it.”

Die entsprechende Quote liegt demnach bei 46 Prozent. Ende 2013, vor Beginn der verstärkten Migration nach Deutschland, hatte der Wert noch bei 36 Prozent gelegen.

It’s In Their DNA Or Something

March 25, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Brexit, EU, Europe, Europeans, German, Germans, Germany, Religion Leave a comment

Self-abnegating Germans obsess about becoming more European than the other Europeans only to make the EU more German than anyone wants it to be.

What makes me chuckle about the Brexiteers is how little they understand the German mindset. Here in Germany, the European Union is a religion. It is ingrained so heavily in the DNA of nearly every German citizen that any reasoned argument to counter its domination, or challenge its direction, is swiftly dismissed. The integrity of the EU – its unity, identity, money and rules – is central to German identity. That’s why they’ve maintained such a tough stance over Brexit.

And there is a clear reason why. As stated here, The EU is Germany writ large.’

The EU is a religion for Germans – no wonder Brexit is going so badly.

Reality Can Be A Bitch Like That

March 19, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Climate, Climate Change, CO2, CO2 Emissions, Coal Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy Leave a comment

After Missing Emissions Targets, Germany Creates Climate Watchdog.

Brilliant, really. First you shut down all your nuclear power plants, build more coal-firing power plants to compensate for them (renewable energy isn’t enough here for some odd reason) and then fail to meet the ridiculously ambitious emissions reduction goals you have set.

Then, once you’ve finally come clean about not being able to come clean, you “set up a ‘climate cabinet’ to coordinate emissions reduction efforts and ensure politicians (you, that is) keep their promises.”

I thought Kafka was dead. Come on, now. Did he write this?

Environment minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) detailed the plan to create a ministerial group to German newspaper Tageszeitung on Saturday, saying it would ensure that ideas to lower the country’s emissions don’t slip through the cracks.

On Course, Of Course

March 18, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Armies, Bundeswehr, Defense, Defense Spending, German, Germans, Germany, NATO Leave a comment

Don’t anyone ever tell you that Germans aren’t reliable.

As noted yesterday, the equipment used by the German army is still as inadequate as ever, despite repeated promises by the German defense minister to make improvements.

And now, despite claims by the German government to one day reach the official NATO target of 2 per cent GDP on defense spending it agreed to years ago, it won’t even be able to make the 1.5 percent it set for itself by 2024. This is “round,” as the Germans say. It all fits like a glove.

Germany is on course to miss its self-declared target for defence spending in a development that threatens to trigger a new row with the US and raises further questions over Berlin’s military contribution to Nato.

The government of Angela Merkel agreed last year to raise the German military budget to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2024 — a marked increase but still short of the official Nato target of 2 per cent.

But the 1.5 per cent target is now under threat after Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat (SPD) finance minister, rebuffed plans for an ambitious increase in military spending in the years ahead, citing a worsening economic outlook.

Gimme An E! Gimme A U!

March 15, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Brexit, EU, France, German, Germans, Germany, Paul Lever Leave a comment

What’s that spell? Germany!

‘The EU is Germany writ large’

If you look at the actual structures of the EU, there’s the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Court. That is exactly the same way that Germany is governed. The Bundesregierung, or federal government, is like the Commission, the Bundestag, or German parliament, is like the European Parliament, and the Bundesrat, the council of the German Länder (the federal states), is like the Council of Ministers, and both the EU and Germany have very powerful constitutional courts, too. So for a German politician moving into the EU, it’s a very familiar world, which is precisely why the Germans find it so easy to operate in Europe…

In the past, the Brits used to complain that the EU or EEC was all run by the French – and certainly French was the working language – but actually it’s run on a German paradigm. The EU is Germany writ large. And this is how it has been from the beginning. It is not some recent German plot to subvert the EU – it is how it was set up…

Germany has been a huge beneficiary from the euro. A study was published recently by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Germany, which estimated that Germany had earned €1.9 trillion from adopting the euro in its first 20 years. But it had cost France €3.6 trillion and Italy €4.3 trillion. German politicians don’t like to admit this.

Political Paralysis?

March 13, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Angela Merkel, Automobiles, China, Defense, Donald Trump, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Tariffs, Trade, Trade Wars, USA Leave a comment

That’s my thing now. That’s what I do.

On the one hand, I could screw it up with this side. On the other hand, I could screw this up over here first. Decisions, decisions…

The global order that underpins German prosperity is unraveling, and Angela Merkel doesn’t know what to do. President Donald Trump’s America First policy is forcing Germany to make an impossible choice between the U.S. and China — pitting the force behind the country’s modern economic success against the key to its future growth…

For decades, the country profited from an international trading system run by the West and backed up by the military might of the U.S. The government just got out of the way and watched exports roll. Those days are over…

“Germany is caught up in a dilemma of changing trade patterns and doesn’t know how to react.”

Trump hin oder her – die USA bleiben Deutschlands wichtigster Absatzmarkt.

Colombia

February 28, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: Courts, Exports, Law, Pacifism, Profit, Weapons, Weapons Exports 1 Comment

Beautiful German weapons sale of the week.

OK, in this case beautiful German judicial deal of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

Three former executives at German gun-maker Sig Sauer, including one who became CEO of a sister company in the United States, reached a deal with prosecutors over allegations they illegally exported arms to Colombia and likely won’t go to prison, a court official in Germany said Wednesday.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Heconomy