Only In Berlin

December 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, BER, Berlin, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, Erich Honnecker, German, Germans, Germany, Government Waste, Humor, Incompetence, Klaus Wowereit, Satire Leave a comment

Speaking of paying more for more of nothing…

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD), the guy personally responsible for the German capital’s world renown BER Berlin Brandenburg still-not-an-Airport project, will be chosen later today to become the new chairman of the board of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Company and thus once again become personally responsible for the German capital’s world renown BER Berlin Brandenburg still-not-an-Airport project.

What part of that don’t you understand? I don’t understand any of it. All I know is that if this were a comedy project we were talking about here it would be a raving success.

Wowereit had already been chairman of the board for the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Company from 2008 to 2013 (not all that long ago), of course, until some trifling misunderstanding cropped up about the airport still not being completed after 10 or 20 years or something like that, I forget, but that is all now Schnee von gestern (long forgotten, “yesterday’s snow”) and everything will be OK again because if there is any one person in all of Germany who can possibly get this job done it is most definitely and certainly Klaus Wowereit himself.

By the way, he has to be reelected today because there is no other opposing candidate. Don’t be bothered by that, though. That kind of thing has a long tradition here in Berlin.

Ausgerechnet der vielgeschmähte Klaus Wowereit soll erneut den Aufsichtsrat der Flughafengesellschaft führen. Er erhält damit eine zweite Chance, das Projekt doch noch zum Erfolg zu führen.

PS: There’s more Klaus stuff here, if you like.

I Love You, You Big Dummy

December 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, City Government, City Tax, Debt, German, Germans, Germany, Government spending, Humor, Satire, Taxation, Tourism 3 Comments

Come to Berlin Country! Come to where the City Tax is!

The city of Berlin loves youz tourists, honest it does. Sort of. In fact, the local yokel politicians here love youz guys so much that they feel the pressing need to show you just how much that is. And it’s a full 15 percent more than any of you out there were expecting. And that’s 15 percent more for getting absolutely nothing in return!

That’s right. Starting next month you will be permitted to pay an additional 15 percent City Tax on top of your hotel room bill here, at no extra cost to them and absolutely not free of charge for you! Now that’s what I call big City Tax hospitality!

I love you, you big dummy. You big dumb tourist. Book your flight to Berlin now!

“Es ist absolut nicht rechtssicher und wird ein bürokratisches Verwaltungsmonster sein.”

Swords To Pflugscharen?

December 11, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Bavaria, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Helmut Schmidt, Hitler, Mein Kampf, Profit, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

You can stop the import of Mein Kampf in Germany, why not stop the export of expensive weapons systems out of Germany?

The Munich Institute for Contemporary History has been working for years on a “scientific edition” of Hitler’s book. In 2012 the state government gave the green light, now it wants to stop the project*.

Meanwhile… On the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, Helmut Schmidt has called on the federal government to stop German weapons exports.”It is time to raise an objection,” the former chancellor wrote in the ZEIT. Germany is the world’s third largest weapons exporter and ranks before China, Japan, France and England, directly after the USA and Russia. “A development that displeases me greatly. And one that needs to be stopped by the coming coalition government in Berlin.”

Er habe Verständnis für “die Unlust der heutigen Deutschen”, “Aber ich halte es für abwegig, statt Soldaten Waffen zu schicken.”

* Germany does not ban “Mein Kampf,” but Bavaria has used its ownership of the copyright to block domestic publication until now. Late Tuesday, the state premier’s chief of staff, Christine Haderthauer, said that Hitler’s anti-Semitic memoir amounts to incitement and that the state would file a criminal complaint if anyone tried to publish it in the future. In Germany, copyright expires 70 years after an author’s death.

Berlin Loses Coveted “Capital Of Debt” Title

December 10, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Cities, City Debt, City Government, Debt, Finances, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire 1 Comment

But only for this season, I’m convinced of it. Debters never quit and quitters never… something. The German cities with the highest per capita debt all seem to be “out west” right now. The Angeber (showoffs).

But there is more to Berlin debt (61 billion) than first meets the eye. The city has cut spending, as anyone who lives here sees on a daily basis, but the money being saved isn’t really from tax revenue generated here in Berlin. Berlin is being kept alive by money coming in from the so-called Länderfinanzausgleich (inter-state fiscal adjustment) system. The rich German states (Bavaria, for instance) get milked for those less inclined to, uh, be rich (Berlin, for instance).

You know, solidarity. Or Umverteilung (redistribution) of other people’s money, if you prefer.

Es bleibt dann leider noch ein Schuldenberg von 61 Milliarden Euro übrig. Das kostet jährlich rund 1,9 Milliarden Euro Zinsen, trotz des immer noch extrem niedrigen Zinsniveaus.

Günter Wallraff Dresses Up As Günter Wallraff To Appear As Günter Wallraff On Günther Jauch

December 9, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, Günter Wallraff, Günther Jauch, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Internet, Online Retailers, Satire, Talk Shows, TV, Undercover Reporters 3 Comments

Günter Wallraff, disguised as the unspeakably annoying undercover reporter Günter Wallraff, appeared undercover last night on Günther Jauch to explain to Günther Jauch how he, as Günter Wallraff, just went undercover to uncover at Amazon ITSELF how Amazon is now single-handedly causing “our entire culture to atrophy” and how it is a “monster” that is using its “slave laborers” to bring “our entire society” in imminent danger (when he says “our” here, folks, he actually means “our” as in the “German our”).

Other than that though he appeared somewhat lucid at times, or at least until the end of the show when his hallucinations began to resurface again and he started foaming at the mouth once more and got in a few of his more predictable anti-American swipes but by that time it was time for me to go to bed and go undercover myself so I had no other choice but to shut his ridiculous ass down.

Günther Jauch stellt in seiner Talkshow den Boykott des Onlineversenders zur Debatte. Dabei fällt der Streit um unmögliche Arbeitsverhältnisse bei Amazon glatt in sich zusammen.

Israel

December 6, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Military, Pacifism, Pacifists, Profit, Weapons, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

Israel is seeking to buy advanced missile boats from Germany to protect drilling operations in its offshore natural gas fields.

German Sky Already Falling With Bad Robots

December 2, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, Data Privacy, Data Security, Drones, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Prime Air, Robots, Satire, Star Wars 1 Comment

Datenschutz! Datenschutz, Datenschutz, Datenschutz Datenschutz. Robot insects.

Drones. Datenschutz. Robots. Amazon. Amazon drone robots. New ideas. Bad technology. Technology bad. Bad ideas.

Then there’s the Datenschutz part.

Jeff Bezos. Darth Vader. Das Imperium schlägt zurück (The Empire Strikes Back).

Technisch ist es möglich, der Datenschutz aber ist heikel.

German Word Of The Day: Zwangsumlage

December 1, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Electricity, Energiewende, Energy, Energy Turnaround, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Government Planning, Green energy, Humor, Language, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Satire, Smart Meters, Socialists, SPD, Taxation, The Green Shirts, The Wayback Machine Leave a comment

Zwangs- = compulsory. Umlage = levy, share in the costs. Put those two together and what do you get? Forced to share. But we’re talking about money here folks so let’s just call it another tax and get it over with already.

This latest planned tax consists of forcing German households to purchase so-called “smart meters” or modern electricity meters that are supposed to regulate energy consumption by drawing electricity from that so wonderfully green German energy grid whenever this energy is cheaper. You know, like when hell freezes over?

This will only set back German consumers another 70 or 80 euros after already having been hit with a seven percent energy bill increase planned for next year, too (the seven can and will change, of course, and we all now in which direction it will be going).

Turn it around as much as you want. Anyway you turn this German energy turnaround around, you’ll always get the same result. Once you’ve turned it around, I mean. She is like way too expensive, señor.

But what can you expect from a government that is about to go retro and way back in the Wayback Machine to the good old days of SPD Never-Never Land again?

“Verbraucher sollten mit attraktiven Angeboten überzeugt, statt mit immer mehr ordnungsrechtlichen Einbaupflichten gezwungen werden.”

PS: The next German word of the day will be Abzocke. Here’s a tip: It means rip-off.

Germany Soon To Get The Government It Voted For

November 26, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: CDU/CSU, Elections, Gabriel, Humor, Merkel, Parliamentary Systems, Proportional Representation, Satire, SPD Leave a comment

Not. In other countries you usually get the government you vote for. But not here in Germany. At least not this time.

Close only counts in horseshoes and dancing (and hand grenades). And Angela Merkel getting close to having an absolute majority in the German election two months ago just wasn’t close enough. So let’s hear it for proportional representation! The FDP is gone. The Greens are still licking their wounds. What’s left? The SPD and the Left party are left, that’s who’s left.

So now the losers are dictating the agenda. In more ways than one.

No, it’s not good news. And it gets worse. As part of his pivot to the left, Gabriel has promised that the Social Democrats will be open to coalitions with the Left party, the heirs of the East German Communists. Since the SPD, the Left and the Greens already hold a majority in parliament, the temptation for Gabriel to break with Merkel in, say, two years to form a “red-red-green” coalition with himself as chancellor could become irresistible.

Taylorismus-Made

November 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Robots, Satire, Unions, Work, Working Conditions, Zombies 2 Comments

Please read the following out loud in that classic monotone el cheapo Hollywood movie robot voice:

We are all robots here. No one talks. It is ghostly quiet here in the Amazon warehouse.

We are forced to wear these weird orange signal jackets. Amazon wants us to hand over our brains at the door once we enter here. There is no turning back.

Only the customer is allowed to have any individuality.

Everything is fully conform. Every step is standardized. Deviations would disrupt the calculation.

They have got me so far that I now do everything they say (just like I already do outside when watching the Tagesschau or when reading Spiegel Online).

I have no free will. We are all victims and are being ausgebeutet (exploited) to an unbearable degree. This is Kapitalismus pur or something. Oh my God we are all going to die. No, wait. We are dead already.

“Mich haben sie jetzt so weit. Ich mache, was man mir sagt.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Heconomy