More than 10,000 Britons are claiming unemployment benefit in Germany because they are not “hassled” in to finding work there.
I dunno. What’s worse? The folks who abuse a system or a system that invites you to abuse it?
“In Britain I had to put up with patronising officials, some of whom tried to get me to accept a job as a cleaner despite my degree.”
I mean Tebartz-van Elst, of course.
“I got your church and state for ya right here, pal.”
What’s all the excitement about? Religious Germans contribute freely to their churches. It’s not as if the money this guy burned had been levied by taxation or anything. Uh, wait a second. OK. So I guess it had been.
Germany separates church and state much less clearly than does America but more explicitly than Anglican Britain or Orthodox Greece. Its post-war constitution, in a clause carried over verbatim from the Weimar constitution of 1919, favours no particular faith but lets all churches levy taxes on their members through the income-tax system (8% or 9% of a taxpayer’s bill, depending on the state).
Fed up with having their personal privacy abused by Facebook, Google and the NSA all the time, many Germans have decided to give up their personal privacy altogether and now actively and gladly publish online practically ever damned freaking boring imaginable thing they do like ALL DAY/EVERY DAY/ALL LIFE LONG.
Actually, I thought they were all doing that already.
And in a related story, the Deutsche Telekom is planning to introduce “a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide,” or at least German-wide. They are then going to call this innovative and highly original new invention of theirs the Internetz. Or they sure ought to.
Or how about the Inner-Netz?
“My philosophy is that information is more useful when it’s out in the open.”
Seven percent in the coming year! For starters.
Hot dog. And all because of the The German Renewable Energy Act.
And this act kind of goes like this: Every kilowatt-hour that is generated from renewable energy facilities receives a fixed feed-in tariff. Renewable energy plant operators receive a 20 year, technology specific, guaranteed payment for their produced electricity. Anyone who produces renewable energy can now sell his ‘product’ for a 20-year fixed price.
And who pays this tariff? You guessed it.
Die EEG-Umlage steigt im kommenden Jahr voraussichtlich um einen Cent je Kilowattstunde.
As if Germans did not have enough to worry about already, a study from Credit Suisse has just confirmed that more than 1.7 million German citizens are now living above the millionaire line.
In fact, despite the so-called financial crisis, the amount of personal wealth has nearly doubled here since the year 2000.
German experts are grappling to find a sufficient explanation for this troubling development, as the causes of excessive German wealth were hitherto thought to have been fully understood and firmly under control.
With the release of these new findings, however, it appears as if some sources of this disgusting German wealth may be attributable to certain socio-demographic characteristics or other social, political, economic and cultural factors that may not have been fully comprehended up until now.
“This is absolutely shameful,” one grudging expert said. “It is an absolute outrage that wealth like this could exist in such an advanced and envious society as ours. We will not tolerate it and we shall never cease our efforts until the causes for this injustice are found and alleviated.”
Seit Mitte 2012 seien 221.000 Menschen hinzugekommen; insgesamt lebten in Deutschland nun gut 1.735.000 Dollar-Millionäre.
In a move that will clearly bring Amazon to its negotiating knees, German union Ver.di is threatening to strike the evil American online retailer’s logistic operations in Germany during the Christmas season itself should said evil retailer not increase wages for its German employees real pronto-like.
Shocked spokesmen at Amazon were clearly speechless here, prefering to announce that their company will now be opening three big new logistic centers just down the road in Poland in the very near future instead.
„Ich würde mich an Amazons Stelle nicht darauf verlassen, vor Weihnachten alle Kundenversprechen einhalten zu können.“
When it comes to that dreadful, awful and inhuman Mexico-United States border fence, I mean?
Not right now? OK, I understand. There must be more important news items to cover at the moment. But I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future again.
The Mexico–United States barrier – also known in the United States as The Border Fence, Rotted Fence or Border Wall – is a collection of several barriers, designed to prevent illegal movement across the Mexico–United States border.
Uh, that’s bad, right?
America’s Republicans have emerged again as a crazed mob. The conservatives have stubbornly voted for the shutdown and against their own leadership. In doing so, they are only thinking of their own careers and not about their party.
Wow. That’s kind of touching. I honestly had no idea that Der Spiegel was so concerned about the Republican Party up until now.
Amerikas Republikaner erscheinen mal wieder wie ein wildgewordener Haufen. Die Konservativen stimmen stur für den Shutdown und gegen die eigene Führung. Dabei denken sie nur an ihre Karriere und nicht an die Partei.
Wat denn nu (well which is it then)? Which of these two headlines is correct?
“Germany offers help to Syria chemical mission”
or
“Germany supplied Syria with chemicals up until 2011?”
Both are, you say? OK, I get it. I mean, I kinda sorta do.
Germany is ready to give finance and technical support to the international operation to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Saturday.
I mean storm. Germany doesn’t even need a wake-up call. But they are always appreciated anyway. The ink was hardly dry on the latest alarming expert IPCC report about “higher seas” (is ink even used anymore?) before German experts here were suddenly quite certain that investments of hundreds of millions of euros will be needed in this country for massive costal protection measures like “super dikes” and other cool stuff like that.
“It is extremely likely” that these investments will just be a meager beginning too, I’m sure. After all, as all Germans know, scary storm tides just keep getting worse and worse here, right?
And WE ALL KNOW that there will be even scarier storm tides crashing in over the German coast in the weeks and months to come because, well, this here IPCC report thingy needs some more handfest (tangible) confirmation. That Germany has always had a Sturmflutsaison (storm tide season) and monster storms throughout recorded history will be of no interest here.
Sound like Fukishima all over again? It should. This is Fukishma all over again. Only different, because the big storm tide hasn’t happened yet.
I think I’m going to go out and get my potable water and canned goods now.
“In der Regel waren die Deiche in den vergangenen Jahren in einem guten bis sehr guten Zustand. Damit das auch künftig so bleibt, werden im Land derzeit einige alte Deiche durch Superdeiche ersetzt.”
Observing Hermann 