Let’s Do The Math

Yeah, that makes sense. When Britain does it’s Brexit thing and leaves the EU the money they’ve been pumping into it all these years will stop coming in.

Brexit

That means the remaining countries – like Germany – will have to make up for this. OK. Are you still with me here? Good. Now can you tell me why this is supposed to be a news item? You should have worried about this before you failed to compromise with them and let them get away in the first place.

Of the expected 10.2 billion euros that will be permanently missing in the EU budget after the Brexit, Germany will most likely have to come up with an additional 3.8 billion annually if the general conditions remain the same.

Von den voraussichtlich netto 10,2 Milliarden Euro, die im EU-Haushalt nach dem Brexit dauerhaft fehlen würden, müsste Deutschland bei unveränderten Rahmenbedingungen rund 3,8 Milliarden Euro übernehmen.

Green Phantom Energy Expensive, Too

How the hell do they do this? It’s magic.

Strom

And the trick goes like this: Germans spent some 643 million euros last year for energy that was never even produced. The reason is the wind energy operators get compensation payments for lost revenues.

How’s that? Is this the New Deal all over again? Nope. Well, yup. Only different. On most days wind turbines in Germany produce more energy than needed. In oder to avoid overloading the energy grid, turbines get taken off the grid or this energy gets fed into foreign grids – for free. In order that German wind energy operators still get their money, however, they get “compensation.” That is, money for electricity they never had to produce. 643 million euros was shelled out for this last year alone, like I said. And things are looking up, too. This was over twice as much as was paid in 2015 (315 million euros). Can’t wait for next year’s bill. German taxpayers pay for this, just in case you were wondering.

Damn. I sure do wish that US-Amerika could start making some progress here with this renewable energy scam, I mean business, but nobody back home seems to get it.

Die Strom-Netzentgelte steigen auf Rekordniveau. Ein Grund sind Windräder, die sich im Leerlauf drehen. Und die Verbraucher merken es im Portemonnaie.

Israel

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Submarine

Because somebody has to admire them.

Meanwhile… All of Germany’s six submarines are currently out of action. The country’s only operational sub had an accident off the coast of Norway on the weekend and was moved into the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems’ shipyard in Kiel. In that incident, the U-35 had a rudder blade damaged during a diving maneuver.

No, it’s not like Germany merely has an alibi army, or in this case navy, just to justify its lucrative weapon sales. It just looks that way.

Airbusted

Here’s the latest big corrupt German corporation (OK, European corporation) valiantly fighting coruption – within ist own corrupt corporation.

Airbus

After getting caught, of course. And here we thought they were all straight up and flew right, right? Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen, Airbus, etc.

“We are in this situation because we decided last year to disclose the issues we had ourselves uncovered to government authorities and investigation agencies,” he said, adding: “This was the right course of action.”

Airbus im Korruptionssumpf – Schwarze Kassen und dubiose Deals: In mehreren Ländern laufen Ermittlungen gegen den Airbus-Konzern. Dem Unternehmen drohen wegen diverser Altlasten aus der Vergangenheit Strafen in Milliardenhöhe. Noch ist offen, ob auch gegen Konzernchef Tom Enders ermittelt wird.

USA

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

German

Because somebody has to admire them.

German weapons firms have found eager buyers in the United States. Stats show that stock prices of US gunmakers rise after shootings like the one in Las Vegas…

Heckler & Koch (H&K), based in Oberndorf, southern Germany, is currently building a $23 million (€19.55 million) gun factory in Columbus, Georgia, that will exclusively make “sports and hunting” weapons for the US civilian market.

“We’re the Porsches.”

Deutsche Post Introduces New Robotic Technology To Deliver Packages Late More Efficiently

Intent on keeping up with the times, the German Post is now in the process of introducing a so-called Postbot that will help human postmen deliver their packages later than ever before, or not at all.

Postbot

Based on their human counterparts, the Postbot will regularly call in sick, inexplicably lose letters and packages assigned to it once it leaves the post office and regularly pretend to have ringed at apartments located two floors or higher before leaving a notice in the mailbox claiming that nobody was home when they were there. The Postbot will do this noticably faster and more efficiently, however, failing to deliver up to seven times the number of undelivered packages normal German postmen fail to deliver.

Union officials have expressed concern that the Postbot could threaten Deutsche Post jobs and insists that the robot must be granted obligatory union memborship to help slow down this frantic pace of technological advance.

In zwei Zustellbezirken wird das vierrädrige, 1,50 Meter hohe Gefährt den Boten hinterher fahren. Es könne bis zu 150 Kilo Briefe und Pakete transportieren, stoppe vor Hindernissen und überwinde Bordsteine. Mittels Sensoren erkennt er die Beine der menschlichen Postboten und folgt ihnen in Schrittgeschwindigkeit.

 

Kiss Me You Big Dummy

But no more tongues.

Gerhard

Already head of the shareholders’ committee for Nord Stream (majority-owned by Russian state gas company Gazprom), Vlad Putin’s point man/gas man Gazprom Gerd Schroeder (he’s a former German chancellor (SPD) or something) has now been named head of the board of directors of Russian state oil giant Rosneft.

Rosneft is on the European Union’s list of companies facing sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, for starters, but who’s going to make a stink about that?

The chair of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Norbert Röttgen, told German public broadcaster ZDF on Friday that it was “completely unbelievable” that Schröder would “cash in” on his earlier role as chancellor at a Russian company.

Rosneft was a “central building block” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s system of power, Röttgen said. He went on to accuse Schröder of working to heighten Germany’s energy dependence on Russia.

Completely unbelievable? This has been going on for years, folks. What’s there not to believe about it now? We live in a world where there are no consequences for behavior like this. Get used to it already.

How Poor Is Germany?

Why Germany is so poor it can’t even put its two cents in the conversation.

EU

Poor? Germany is so poor it scams the Nigerians.

Germany is poor. It’s so poor it drives a Poor-shh.

And to top these jokes off, Germany is so poor that German states like Brandenburg will continue to need aid from the European Union for, like, well… Forever.

Remember: “The state (or in this case the über-suprranational-EU-state) is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”

Brandenburg darf aus Sicht von Finanzminister Christian Görke (Linke) bei künftigen notwendigen Haushaltseinsparungen der Europäischen Union nicht belastet werden.

Germans Worried About Low Angst Level

Concerned about the traditional German angst about sozialer Abstieg (personal social decline) is currently at an all-time low, a number of German angst experts are recommending that radical options be considered when next month’s election rolls around.

Hafen

“We could all vote for the SPD, for instance,” said one less than thoroughly angst-filled social worker, with a stress on social. “That would bring my angst about social decline shooting back to appropriate levels in no time. I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for the Left party yet, though. I do have heart problems, after all.”

Die Wirtschaft wächst – und die Deutschen fühlen sich so sicher wie seit fast drei Jahrzehnten nicht. Laut einer Erhebung der Universität Leipzig hat nur noch jeder Dritte Abstiegsängste.

PS: To help folks combat their angst about not having enough angst, somebody has introduced Donald Trump ecstasy pills over here. They are guaranteed to stick in any German throat that tries to swallow them, however.

Why Are Germany’s Public Broadcasters Raising Their Mandatory Fee?

Because they can.

TV

It will be going up soon enough from 17.50 euros to 21 euros. Whether you even own a TV or not. The excuse this time: They are having trouble cutting costs within the time frame they had promised. There you have it; a state-run monopoly financed with mandatory fees from a public that is never asked if it wants to watch its party line programming or not. I don’t get it, either. How could an institution like that ever have trouble cutting costs?

Bis 2029 sollen die Rundfunkbeiträge von heute 17,50 Euro auf 21 Euro steigen. So jedenfalls wollen es ARD, ZDF und Deutschland-Radio. Und begründen das ausgerechnet damit, ihr Einsparvolumen bis 2024 sonst nicht erreichen zu können.