Category Archives: Home Cooking

“Donald is right”

June 22, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

On China.

“On this point, Donald is right — there is a serious problem,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, as she slammed Beijing for disrupting global trade with subsidies to boost its own companies – accusing the CCP of “weaponizing” its leading position in the production and refinement of raw materials used for cars, batteries and wind turbines.

She then encouraged Trump to join forces with US allies to address China’s trade imbalances, rather than punishing them with his own tariff scheme.

“When we focus our attention on tariffs between partners, it diverts our energy from the real challenge — one that threatens us all.”

Why older Germans are opting for military service?

June 19, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ah, because younger Germans aren’t?

Prepared to defend: Why older Germans are opting for military service – Thomas Hüser did not serve his country in uniform and with a weapon in the early 1990s, but instead opted to work for a year as a care assistant for the elderly – as was his right under Germany’s laws on alternative military service.

However, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the 54-year-old had a major rethink on his earlier moral stance on taking up arms.

“In the face of global threats, serving in the armed forces is a question of solidarity. Only a strong military can protect us,” said Hüser, a communications expert and manager who runs a zinc smelter in the northern German state of Lower Saxony.

But nine out of ten do

June 18, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

At least.

Germany: One in four immigrants doesn’t want to stay – Why are immigrants leaving Germany? A new study shows that other countries are more attractive to economically successful foreigners. Discrimination also plays a major role.

“Twenty-six percent, or around 2.6 million people, say that they actually considered leaving Germany last year, i.e., they thought about leaving the country,” said Yuliya Kosyakova, head of the Migration, Integration, and International Labor Market Research Division at the IAB, as she summarized the figures at the presentation of the study in Berlin. “Around 3%, or 300,000 people, already have concrete plans to leave.”

Is that from the same guy who wrote “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?”

June 11, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“Debt and precarious stagnation in the EU and Germany” sounds like a good read too.

Europe faces mounting fiscal strain as Germany pivots toward debt-financed spending to maintain political support…

The public has now lost faith in traditional muddling through and demands drastic changes.

This report focuses on Europe, where the economic situation has worsened considerably in recent years. Several countries on the old continent have become more vulnerable to shocks, and imbalances have piled up. Moreover, leaders have demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to address structural problems, yet they are all too eager to haughtily break their electoral promises, swim with the tide and gather consensus through frantic lawmaking in the name of emergencies, fairness and social justice.

German of the day: Kleine grüne Männchen

June 10, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means little green men.

Russia could send “little green men” to test NATO’s resolve, German intelligence boss warns – Russia is determined to test the resolve of the NATO alliance, including by extending its confrontation with the West beyond the borders of Ukraine, the Germany’s foreign intelligence chief told the Table Media news organization.

Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, said his agency had clear intelligence indications that Russian officials believed the collective defence obligations enshrined in the NATO treaty no longer had practical force…

Without detailing the nature of his intelligence sources, Kahl said Russian officials were envisaging confrontations that fell short of a full military engagement that would test whether the U.S. would really live up to its mutual aid obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

“They don’t need to dispatch armies of tanks for that,” he said. “It’s enough to send little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities.”

Rewarded for failure(s)

June 3, 2025 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

If you were catastrophically inept at your last job, it’s time for you to get a promotion.

Everybody’s doing it. See Ursula von der Leyen who got promoted to President of the European Union after bungling her job as German Defense Minister – and two or three other jobs before that.

Germany’s Baerbock elected as UN General Assembly head – Former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was voted in as president of the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, Germany’s tough migration policy has been dealt a setback in court.

Tariffs don’t work…

May 31, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Until they do.

Then an agreement is reached and the tariffs are lowered. We could ask Elon but this doesn’t seem like rocket science to me.

Trump’s Tariffs Cost BMW $11 Million A Day, So Germans Want A Deal – European carmakers are losing millions daily to US tariffs despite American production bases.

Trade wars rarely end well for anyone involved, and when the crossfire hits the automotive industry, the damage adds up fast. Nowhere is that more evident than in Germany, where the ongoing tariff standoff is racking up some eye-watering costs. According to a new report, BMW is losing a staggering $11.3 (£8.4 / €10) million per day thanks to U.S. tariffs.

Boom or bust?

May 30, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Home Cooking Tags: , , Leave a comment

Being that everything in Germany is already busted, I’ll go with boom.

Could German infrastructure be the next hot investment?

Germany’s newly minted government is looking to the private sector to help save the country’s ailing infrastructure.

Economy minister Katherina Reiche called for a cash injection earlier this month:

“We need speed and investments, and we need private capital,” she told CNBC. “Of all the investments we will do, 10% of them could be done with public money, we need 90% of private sector investments.”