German Of The Day: Schrumpfen

That means to shrink.

You know. As in the Sick Man of Europe? The Incredible Shrinking (or was it Sinking) Country?

German Economy Shrinks Faster Than Expected – It’s a rare thing to happen, but Germany now looks like the sick man of Europe, a phrase previously often used to describe Britain.

The health of the business sector dropped significantly in June, according to recent data. The Ifo Business Climate index for Germany, which measures the health of the commercial sector, registered 88.5 in June, down from 91.5 in May. Higher numbers show economic strength, whereas lower ones show a weakening of the economy.

Speaking of sinking…

Delegates Defect

The missing people include eight members of the Ivory Coast delegation along with one each from Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Guinea, Lebanon, and Senegal.

Berlin police seek missing Special Olympics delegates – More than a dozen members of delegations at the Special Olympics in Berlin have disappeared, rather than return to their home countries, German authorities have said.

Forget Manhattan

First we take Sonneberg. Then we take Berlin.

When conservative parties no longer have the courage to be conservative parties (thanks again, Angela Merkel), where will many of their voters go?

German far-right party wins its first county leadership post, rising in polls – Victory of AfD’s candidate in rural Sonneberg area reflects rising popularity of anti-immigration party.

They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

We Germans Don’t Have Babies Anymore

And now we don’t have workers anymore (some speculate there may be a connection here).

But we’ve passed another way cool law. Now the unskilled migrants who came here illegally can stay. Unfortunately, the skilled migrants we would now like to have aren’t interested in coming to Germany because of our taxation bureaucracy, etc. A well-functioning system, don’t you think? Or have we forgotten to fix anything else? No need to thank us. We’re from the government and we’re here to help.

German parliament reforms skilled work immigration law – The German parliament has passed legislation to open up new opportunities for job seekers from countries outside the EU and for many refugees who are already in the country. Conservative lawmakers are up in arms.

Wet And Wild Summertime Diversity Fun!

The elephant in the pool. The name we do not speak.

Spate of mass brawls at German outdoor swimming pools.

Some of the comments, blaming “social hotspots” or so-called “clans”, appear tinged with racism: both are code words for immigrant groups…

But German society today is less hierarchical than ever. So, in Berlin, the “Bademeister” already relies on security guards to keep the peace.

The Germans Can’t Talk About Biden

Even they can see what’s happening in US-Amerika right now and are in the deepest, strategic denial. So they gladly talk about (as in down) Trump instead. Or “Trump’s America.” That Evergreen (German for perennial hit) is always a guaranteed feel-good.

A Road Trip through Trump’s America – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking another term in the White House. A trip through Republican-controlled states reveals just how radically America has already changed. Can the country survive a second Trump tenure?

Is America on the verge of a split? Or, even worse, a civil war? The question may sound rather hysterical, but the longer you travel through the country, the more pressing it becomes…

Save The Planet

Leave the country.

It’s the only Green thing to do.

German energy prices are so high they’re driving companies to relocate, industry body says…

In May, the German government revealed plans to set aside around 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) each year to subsidize electricity prices for energy-intensive industries, in an attempt to shield businesses from high electricity prices.

“A lot of family-owned companies … have very operational plans to relocate.”

Journalists Have Been Automated Consensus Machines (Robots) For Years

Why should editors get off the hook?

German tabloid Bild to replace range of editorial jobs with AI – Hundreds of redundancies expected as Axel Springer tells staff certain roles will ‘no longer exist as they do today.’

Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, is to replace a range of editorial jobs with artificial intelligence as part of a €100m costcutting programme expected to lead to hundreds of redundancies.

The newspaper would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”, its owner, Europe’s largest media publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff.

Depends On The Woman, I Guess

And what is a woman these days, anyway?

1 in 3 German men find violence against women ‘acceptable’ – A survey commissioned by Plan International Germany found that 33% of male respondents thought violence against women was acceptable. Almost half of respondents also felt “disturbed” by public displays of homosexuality.

According to a new survey, 33% of men aged 18-35 thought it was “acceptable” if “their hand slipped” occasionally during an argument with their female partner, while 34% of respondents admitted that they had been violent towards women in the past.