“We can continue to screw up our image just fine all on our own, thank you,” A party spokesman said.
With comrades like these who needs enemies?
“Seine Zeit ist einfach vorbei.”
Category Archives: Hurt Feelings
Luder F.
We Don’t Do Humility
We self-righteous high priests of the German political left, I mean. It’s just not our thing.
But what we do do is regularly transform a little imaginary something we call “collective guilt” (World War II guilt, there is no such thing as Communist East Germany guilt) into new products (poems) with new perpetrators (Israel) which we market at irregular intervals to cover our countrymen’s never-ending demand for ritual redemption which of course will never be satisfied, or so we lead them (and us) to believe.
“Membership in the Waffen-SS is normally not a great beginning for a career as keeper of the global conscience. Were I to have joined the Nazi military at age 15, I too would likely be a bit wary of criticizing Holocaust survivors. But that is exactly the problem: Humility was never Grass’ thing. His expertise lies more in self-righteousness.”
State Subsidies In Action
This would be funny if wasn’t so funny. Where do we want to go broke today? Q-Cells is now the fourth major bankruptcy in the German solar industry sector of late and although they are sure to have made a lot of dumb mistakes themselves, they certainly couldn’t have gone bankrupt “this well” without the German government’s relentless and merciless help.
It’s all about drugs, subsidy drugs. And once these subsidy drugs had been administered – in this case promoting wonderful and environmentally friendly solar technology for the good of all German-kind (in a country where sunshine is still a news item) – most of these companies failed to wean themselves from their reliance upon them and made some bad business decisions as a result (decisions they wouldn’t have made if they had been clean).
In the meantime, Asian competitors in the real world learned to produce the solar technology cheaper (as usual) and, just to add a little insult to injury here, it turns out that the German government helped the Chinese solar industry with financial aid , too. Only they did this better than they did in Germany.
Then Berlin finally got tired of shelling out all this money back home and started reducing the dosage faster than the addicts could adapt to and, well, the rest is history, or Geschichte, if you prefer.
So what’s the moral of the story? Remember those nine most terrifying words in the English language: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
Somehow the German government must have lost sight of the fact that its policy in fact encourages the demise of Germany’s own solar industry. The development bank of the government-owned KfW group of banks supports China’s green industry with low-interest loans. Ironically, the German Investment and Development Company (DEG), also a subsidiary of KfW, is one of the financial backers of Chinese industry giant Yingli Solar.
Bust Them, Switzerland
And throw away the key. Those no good criminals. Those German tax collectors who have been trading in stolen Swiss goods.
Switzerland has issued arrest warrants for industrial espionage for three German tax collectors who bought (with German government approval) the bank details of German tax evaders in Switzerland.
“For Germany, the issue is one of tax fraud, leading the country to authorize three tax inspectors to buy leaked stolen data on tax evaders in 2010. This legally dubious approach wasn’t an issue domestically because of the common belief that the state was collecting its alleged due and it effects only ‘the rich.’ But in reality, because Switzerland has different laws, the officials acquired stolen property to use as evidence, and paid the thieves €2.5 million for it. Anyone who dismisses this as a trifle needs legal tutoring.”
“Just imagine how Germany would react were the Chinese government to buy automobile designs from German car company employees to speed up industrial development — with the argument that patent laws are too strong in the West.”
Another Shocking New Revelation
“Germany is a nation of grumblers.”
Wow. And this guy should know. He’s a German himself.
I mean, I knew that they were a nation of moaners and whiners and that they liked to complain and gripe and lament a lot and that they regularly deplore things and eat their hearts out bemoaning matters while greiving and bitching and moaning (as opposed to just moaning without the bitching part), but I honesly had no idea that they were grumblers, too. Hey, live and learn.
“Anyone who follows all the daily debates in Germany that are critical of capitalism and growth could come to the conclusion that we Germans don’t want to be successful anymore.”
It’s OK That Obama Got Caught Saying That
Der Spiegel rushes to tell us.
Because other politicians have been caught on mic saying bad things, too.
Only they were bad. So there.
“Nach meiner Wahl habe ich mehr Flexibilität.”
This Gives Hairenrasse A Whole New Meaning
Would you buy shampoo from this guy?
He’s big in Turkey, I guess.
“Why are you using woman’s shampoo if you’re not wearing a woman’s dress? Now there’s the hundred percent men’s shampoo Biomen. A real man uses Biomen.”
Gentrification Giants 1 – Subculture Vultures 0
An evicted group of about 20 subculture artist/activist types chained to the remains of Berlin’s graffiti-covered Tacheles alternative scene “living space” ruin is about to be forcibly dragged out kicking and screaming into German reality by black-clad gentrification special forces troops right here live on TV, I hope, but nobody can tell me when. Or on which channel or anything (maybe later in the Internetz?).
The group is defending “one of Berlin’s last bastions of alternative subculture, and are fighting eviction ahead of plans to develop it (the Tacheles) as an office and luxury apartments complex” and has to be dealt with accordingly, of course. After years of pussyfooting around with them first, I mean.
I would advise them not to let the door hit them on the way out but there are no doors at the Tacheles as they were surely used as firewood long ago during one of those quaint, Stone Age let’s-not-freeze-to-death-tonight gettogethers so popular with artist types there and elsewhere here in Berlin.
Tacheles “is just the latest in a long line of public spaces that have been lost to private investors” and will surely be missed by all, myself not included.
Darko stands behind an iron gate, his bare chest daubed in red paint with the words “victim of bank.”
PS: This German subculture is not to be confused with this other German subculture here.
Just Say No
As usual, I mean. Berliners in Kreuzberg (or at least that active, left-wing kind) aren’t interested in finding new solutions for urban living, thank you. And they’ll even threaten you with violence if you try to establish “temporary cultural space” to attempt to do so (go ask BMW Guggenheim Lab). Kreuzbergers don’t do culture. Temporary or otherwise.
And speaking of resistence… The rest of the country is pretty much Kreuzberg all over again (only on a much larger scale) when it comes to saying no to the Internet (some call it the Internetz).
This isn’t really a news item or anything, but now certain German businessmen types are actually starting to get worried about their country “sleeping through the Internet” age like it does.
They have come to discover that their fellow Germans provide “too few qualified professionals, suffer way too much from risk aversion and are caught up in a tightly structured regulation frenzy.” Like I said, this isn’t anything new. But the real question is: What are you going to be able to do about that? Not a damned thing, of course.
Das Internet ist ein globaler Treiber für die Wirtschaft. Doch in Deutschland bremsen Fachkräftemangel und hohe Anforderungen an den Datenschutz die Firmen aus.
