Our Energy Turnaround Will Work

July 10, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Energiewende, Energy Turnaround, German, Germans, Germany, Nuclear energy, Solar energy, Wind Energy Leave a comment

But only as long as we keep using the nuclear energy we supposedly turned around from.

According to an analysis by the Breakthrough Institute, Germany’s current installed solar panels will end up costing ratepayers $130 billion over the next 20 years through above-market-rate feed-in tariff contracts, compared to $15 billion for a state-of-the-art nuclear reactor that will generate over half the electricity of Germany’s entire solar fleet over a similar 20-year period…

The largest advantage of nuclear power is its ability to provide reliable, baseload power year-round 24 hours a day. Solar and wind can be economical as distributed energy resources, whose greatest value is suppressing demand load on the grid. But nuclear power provides baseload power and will therefore be the most technically optimal replacement for large fossil-fueled power stations like coal plants.

More Cutting-Edge Berlin Fashion

July 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Lifestyle, Satire 2 Comments

And we’re really talking cutting-edge here, people.

I think you have to have a freakin’ fashion Waffenschein (weapons permit) to wear one of those. Or at least you ought to.

Berlin Fashion Week is THE international location for fashion and lifestyle topics.

Our CO2 Doesn’t Stink

June 27, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Automobiles, Berlin, Cars, CO2, EU, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Industry, Satire 1 Comment

Or maybe it’s green or something. At any rate, Germany just managed to block the adoption of new emissions limits for cars produced in the European Union. This was necessary because, well, this legislation would have handicaped Germany’s automobile industry, focused as it is on the luxury car sector.

Germany has long seen itself as a leader when it comes to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. Indeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government remains committed to radically expanding its reliance on renewable energies in the coming decades.

But when it comes to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases German-made automobiles produce, Berlin is far less ambitious.

“It is a scandal.”

Discountrepublik Deutschland

June 24, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, Cost of Living, Economics, EU, Euro Zone, Europe, GDP, German, Germans, Germany, Inflation, Living Costs, Prices 1 Comment

Verblüffender Befund (an amazing finding)? I don’t see how it could amaze anyone here – anyone who has ever gone shopping in Germany and then compared those prices to those you would pay in other European countries, that is.

Germans apparently aren’t aware of the fact that they have some of the lowest Lebenshaltungskosten (living costs or cost of living) in all of Europe. Of their immediate neighbors, it’s only cheaper to live in Poland and Czechia.

What is really amazing I find, however, is the fact that the Germans are able to enjoy these cheap prices while still having a higher per capita GDP than a lot of the European countries with a higher cost of living (Belgium, Denmark, France).

Beats the hell out of me. Hey, es darf eben nichts kosten here.

Verbraucher in Deutschland bekommen für ihren Euro mehr als die Menschen in den Nachbarländern. Lediglich bei den Nachbarn in Polen und Tschechien sind die Lebenshaltungskosten niedriger.

Black Workers Are Everywhere These Days

June 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Black Market, Economy, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Government Interference, Illegal Employment, Regulation, Schwarzarbeit, Taxation, Taxes, Undocumented Workers Leave a comment

No, not Afro-American workers. You know, Schwarzarbeiter (illegal workers).

And they’re everywhere all over Europe these days, although Germany is the champion here again too, as usual.

Eight million Germans are working on the black market as we speak, so-to-speak, generating about 13 percent of the country’s economic output. And loving it, I hope for them, because many of them just don’t seem to have any choice in the matter. Nobody will hire them otherwise:

Punitive tax regimes, increased labor market regulation and a growing lack of trust in governments are causing many Europeans to abandon formal employment and enter into the murky, illicit world of shadow economies worth billions of dollars.

Unternehmen und Arbeitnehmer setzen auf Schwarzarbeit, dadurch entstehen zwei Drittel des Schadens. Für das weitere Drittel ist verantwortlich, dass viele zu geringe Einkommen und Erträge ausweisen.

The Spiegel Says: US-Amerika One Big Debtor’s Prison

June 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Climate Change, Debt, Debtor's Prison, German, Germans, Germany, Global warming, Poverty, Science, Scientists, The Ozone Hole, USA Leave a comment

More and more Americans are being punished for their poverty: Above all in rural areas judges have been putting delinquent debtors in prison as of late. This medieval practice is illegal, unconstitutional – and widespread.

“Diese Unsitte verbindet man mehr mit der Zeit von Charles Dickens als mit dem modernen Amerika.”

PS: Speaking of deplorable customs and disturbing developments – and good fiction – when are these deplorable refutations of sacrosanct scientific certainties ever going to stop?! I mean, what ever happened to the ozone hole? It’s not there anymore or something.

Well it’s One drink of wine, two drinks of gin… and I’m lost in the ozone again.

Ray Must Pay

June 6, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria Tags: Berlin, Forest Boy, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Practical Jokes, Ray the Forest Boy, Satire, Welfare, Welfare Fraud 4 Comments

Welfare fraud? In Germany? No way.

Way, Ray. Not even forest boys get a free lunch around here in poor but sexy but poor Berlin these days.

The city is sticking Ray with a 30,000 euro bill for all they did for him while he was doing all he could to them for about nine months back in 2011/2012. And they won’t remove that blindfold thingy there until he pays, either.

“Wir haben ihm Essen, Trinken und Kleidung gegeben und sogar einen Sprachkurs finanziert.”

“German System” Suffering From Irregularity

June 2, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Gun control, Guns, Pacifism, Regulation, Weapons, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

But only in other countries where “German system” weapons are being exported to, of course.

“How do these weapons end up in places they should not be?” a distressed Deutsche Welle asks with concerned Kulleraugen (big wide saucer eyes). They clearly don’t have proper gun control laws down there in those awful places. Not like we do here in Germany.

For example, in Mexico, police forces in states which are embroiled in a drug war are considered even by the central government as part of the security problem in their regions – nevertheless they have been issued with German-built G36 assault rifles, which can fire up to 750 rounds a minute. Germany’s Economics Ministry, which is responsible for export clearance, in fact sanctioned shipment of the weapons to Mexico – but not to the restive regions. The State Prosecutor in Stuttgart has launched an investigation into the German manufacturer of the G36 assault rifle, Heckler & Koch. The arms company told Deutsche Welle that individual employees, who have since left Heckler & Koch, were to blame for the irregularities.

Germany prides itself on having “strict, even restrictive regulations” for the export of weapons of war.

Alternative Reality Expensive As Hell

May 29, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Costs, Electricity, Energy, Energy Turnaround, Environmentalists, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Prices, Renewable energy, Subsidies, Taxation, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

As part of Germany’s switch to renewables, industry has been exempt from paying higher prices associated with solar and wind energy. The European Commission, however, believes the practice distorts competition on the Continent. Huge penalties could be in store.

The costs of start-up financing for green energy and the compensation for expansion of the power grid are added to customers’ electricity bills in the form of a special tax. The entire subsidy system is supposed to come to an end when green energy becomes competitive. That, at least, is the theory.

But the reality is different. No longer can one simply describe the tax as a way to get renewable energies off the ground. Indeed, following Berlin’s decision two years ago to shelve nuclear energy and accelerate the expansion of renewables, the EEG (Renewable Energies Act) has become a giant redistribution machine.

“The fact that German electricity prices are among the highest in Europe despite relatively low wholesale prices must serve as a warning signal.”

Kleinvieh Macht Auch Mist

May 27, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Guns, Idioms, Imports, Pacifism, Small Arms, Weapons, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

Literally, “small animals make manure, too.” But of course this German idiom means more. What they’re really saying is “every little bit counts.”

And the Süddeutsche Zeitung just found a whole bunch of manure when it brought out a report about German small arms sales. They hit an all-time high in 2012, at more than double the previous year’s sales.

And Germans are really concerned about this (not). Not at all, really. As a matter of fact, as far as I can tell, the only time Germans seem to get concerned about small arms is when one of those crazy Americans goes berserk and uses one to kill a bunch of innocent people again because there is simply not enough effective gun control legislation in that dang dern US-Amerika country of theirs. Legislation aimed at stopping small arms imports from Germany, I suppose they mean.

Exporting small weapons is a contentious issue as they are used to kill far more people than heavy weapons and major military equipment around the world. Amnesty International estimates that 1,000 people die each day from gunshot wounds inflicted by small arms. Owing to their size, they are also the hardest weapons to keep track of, and circulate with comparative ease in conflict zones.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Heconomy