“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.

Drink Your Fracking Beer Already

May 24, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Heconomy, Hideology, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Beer, Berlin, Fracking, German, Germans, Germany, Reinheitsgebot Leave a comment

Uh oh. Germans are suddenly worried about their Reinheitsgebot or “German Beer Purity Law” again. And Fracking, I mean.

This has to do with the fact that fracking does not stick soley to the only ingredients that may be used in the production of beer: Water, barley and hops. As a matter of fact, I don’t even think that fracking uses barley and hops at all.

I’m interested in tradition, too, of course. But let’s face it, if you’re going to start quoting a 500-year-old “purity law,” quote it right: The law also set the price of beer at 1-2 Pfennig per Maß.

The Brauer-Bund beer association is worried that fracking for shale gas, which involves pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground, could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity.

“Das Reinheitsgebot darf nicht beeinträchtigt werden. Es müssen alle Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, damit das Brauwasser geschützt wird.”

150 Years Old And They Still Haven’t Figured It Out

May 23, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anniversaries, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Political Parties, Satire, Social Democracy, Socialism, SPD 5 Comments

Socialism, of course, has never worked. Not once. Not in any form.

And German social democracy (like social democracy and their even cheaper imitations everywhere else around the world), although doing its best not to ever actually use the word socialism itself, is of course nothing other than the democratic attempt to reach that very goal. Which has never worked (once “reached”), like I said. But still.

So today the German SPD gets to celebrate its bittersweet 150th birthday — trailing badly in polls ahead of September elections and hearing praise for its efforts to reform Europe’s biggest economy from French President Francois Hollande, a recent left-wing winner who has also lost his luster.

Hey, whatever. More power to them and Happy Birthday and all that because, well, I kind of admire them in a way. But only kind of. They’re like a bunch of nutty professors who simply refuse to believe that their never-ending pursuit of the perpetual motion machine is maybe sort of not such a great idea – and a big waste of time after all. You know, searching for a machine that produces “motion that continues indefinitely without any external source of energy; impossible in practice because of friction?”

There’s always friction out there, you see. It’s called reality. Or self-interest, if you prefer. Or the desire of individuals to live their lives without interference from others who aren’t interested or able to live their own?

Or maybe just money, in the end. Like Margaret Thatcher once said: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Strange, isn’t it? But that’s the SPD’s problem, too. Happy Birthday anyway! Now just shut up and cut the cake already.

“No other party has been able to last so long, because its core demands have constantly remained relevant in new ways: freedom, social justice and political participation.”

Alternative Energy Available In US-Amerika

May 22, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Energy Costs, Fracking, German, Germans, Germany, Politics, Renewable energy 2 Comments

Soaring German energy costs in the wake of the country’s transition to renewable energy have seen more and more firms thinking abut relocating their operations. The US looks like a sound alternative, associations claim.

And this even though everybody (everybody Green or SPD) knows that fracking is EVIL.

“If we don’t get on top of the country’s energy transition to renewables and are not able to rein in energy costs in the process, German industry’s competitiveness stands to suffer.”

Germany’s Crappy Eurovision Song Not Given The Votes It Deserved

May 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Cascada, Contests, Euro Zone, Eurovision, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Justin Bieber, Mally the Monkey, Paranoia, Pets, Politics, Satire, Songs, Voting, Whining 1 Comment

Denmark’s Loreen and 19 others sang crappy songs that took in way more votes.

Böse Zungen (malicious tongues) have even suggested that Germany’s crappy Eurovision showing last night might not be entirely the fault of its crappy Cascada entry.

“We are in a difficult situation,” Thomas Schreiber from the ARD TV über-network said. “This is clearly a political situation.”

It wasn’t like Angela Merkel was singing (she might have actually won), but “you also have to see that it wasn’t just Cascada up there, Germany was on stage, too.”

Der ARD-Unterhaltungschef deutet ein Imageproblem in Europa an: “Da stand auch Deutschland auf der Bühne.”

PS: It wasn’t all bad news for Germany this weekend, however. Justin Bieber’s monkey will now become a German citizen.

Someone Needs To Finally Have The Decency To Tell The German Greens Which Country They Live In

May 17, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Greens, Humor, Satire, Taxation, Taxes Leave a comment

When it comes to money matters, I mean.

Like I mentioned earlier, only in Germany can a political party go for (and actually get) votes by promising to raise taxes.

But I now stand corrected: (actually hope to get) is what I should have written. It turns out that not even do-gooder mainstream green-like German green people like the idea of increased taxes all that terrible much. At least not when the cameras have finally been turned off and they can answer a survey in peace and quite when the Green Shirt party watchdogs aren’t breathing down their necks.

Ever since the announcement of that wacky plan of theirs to raise the top rate of income tax to 49 percent for those earning 80,000 euros ($104,000) a year or more (and to 45 percent from 42 percent above 60,000 euros), voter support for them has dropped steadily.

I guess there’s GREEN in theory and GREEN in practice after all. And practice makes perfect, you know.

Die Grünen erreichen im Politbarometer nur noch 13 Prozent. Dass die Steuerpläne der Partei schaden, glauben 53 Prozent.

Euro Hawk Actually Euro Turkey

May 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Bundeswehr, Drones, Euro Hawk, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military, Politics, Satire 4 Comments

Just when Germans thought that they could own a drone of their own, one of those fancy European-made Euro Hawk drone type drones, somebody finally did the math and figured out that the 508 million euros already spent for the prototype had already been more than enough already.

Now Germany is in talks with Israel on buying something called a Heron TP drone instead. I assume that the TP stands for Total Preiswert (totally inexpensive) and this is definitely the way to go because if you absolutely positively have to own killing machines that you will never ever use in a million years anyway, cheapness is what you want.

Berlin sucht den Drohnen-Depp!

Mutually Assured Disillusionment

May 14, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Economy, EU, Euro, Euro Crisis, Europe, France, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Polls, Psychology, Satire, Surveys, The Euro Zone Leave a comment

And here you thought that the Germans could bitch and moan about Europe.

And boy can they ever. But the reigning Weltmeister of Whining is now suddenly getting some unexpected stiff competition from France, of all places (with Spain, Italy and Greece picking up speed in the griping department, too).

“No European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned (with Europe) faster than France,” according to a Pew Research Center report, released in Brussels and Washington. “The French are negative about the economy, with 91 percent saying it is doing badly, up 10 percentage points from 2012.”

France’s malaise with the European Union’s outlook is more similar to sentiment in Spain, Italy and Greece than it is to the mood in Germany, which is the only EU nation of eight surveyed where at least half the public backed giving more power to Brussels to deal with the economic crisis.

So let’s get with it already, Germany. This race ain’t near over with. We (as in you) can do this. When the going gets tough, the tough get moaning.

“Deutsche leben mental auf ihrem eigenen Kontinent.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Heconomy