Like duh. Always has been. Otherwise they wouldn’t call it Berlin.
The street violence in Berlin on New Year’s Eve has triggered a debate on law and order ahead of regional elections in several states, including Berlin. Bavaria’s center-right Premier, Markus Söder from the Christian Social Union (CSU), lashed out at the center-left government in Berlin claiming it could “neither organize elections nor guarantee the safety of its citizens”.
What’s that? I live in Berlin.
Asked which region in Europe has been the absolute worst at realizing its economic potential, most people probably wouldn’t name Berlin. The German capital isn’t just nice to live in, it’s throbbing with excitement; a startup is reportedly created here every 20 minutes, and if you leave for a night out, you risk not coming back for a week. But according to a study of the economic performance of European regions, Berlin is indeed the worst.
What is more important: productivity or a city’s peculiar, esoteric feel? Berlin is one of the places where this question is especially poignant.
That means nothing works. Or how about “failed State?” That means failed state. You know, like the failed city-state of Berlin?
When the prominent Mayor of Tübingen Boris Palmer (Greens) has to come to Berlin for business he says to himself “Watch out, you are now leaving the functioning part of Germany.” He just can’t deal with the mix of crime, drug dealing and bitter poverty confronting him here on the street. “I don’t want to have these conditions in Tübingen,” he says.
Don’t worry. You never will. And you’re right, of course. Nothing works here in Berlin. But isn’t that the point? Oddly, for whatever the reason (decades of SPD-Green-Left Party mismanagement at city hall? Half the population being on welfare?) nobody in Berlin seems to care. And sheesh. In all fairness, this guy has clearly never been to an American city.
Berlin, ein „failed State“? Irgendwie schon, so Tübingens Oberbürgermeister Boris Palmer. Die Mischung aus Kriminalität, Drogenhandel und bitterer Armut auf der Straße verunsichere ihn als Baden-Württemberger nachhaltig.
That means compensation.
Hey, what’s in a name, right? The sex site Pornhub has published a YouTube video in which it offers the Austrian town of Fucking – along with a few other towns also having interesting names (listed below) – lifetime free access to its content.
It’s called the Premium Places Program and is meant to help soothe the mental anguish these poor townsfolk must have to go through.
“Where were you born, son?” “You got married where?” “And just where is this cemetary located?”
“In Fucking, Austria, I said. You deaf or something?”
Auch La Vagina in Italien, Orgy in Frankreich, Rectum in den Niederlanden, Bitsch in der Schweiz (Kanton Wallis) und Cumming in den USA gehören unter anderem zu den auserwählten Orten.
That means emergency.
And in case of emergency (whatever that might mean at this point), the German City and Municipal Association (Städte- und Gemeindebund) has recommended to its members that they should refuse to accept any more refugees. These communities are already overwehlmed as it is.
Funny how associations like the German City and Municipal Association are always the last ones to figure things out like this. It has been my impression, and the impression of everybody else I know here, that German communities have been in a state of emergency since 2015.
Der Städte- und Gemeindebund hat die ungleiche Verteilung von Flüchtlingen auf die Kommunen kritisiert. Dadurch würde die Integration der Menschen behindert.
That’s a beauty, isn’t it? And it means “German Länder fiscal equalization scam.” I mean scheme.
And THAT means.. Well, think Robin Hood. The rich and therefore “bad” German states (the ones on the left in the image) must be punished for this and therefore the Robin Hoodlums in the Bundestag take some of their money and give it to the poor and therefore “good” German states (on the right side of the image). Berlin, on top, is actually on bottom, so-to-speak, being the poorest of the poor. The Robin Hoods and the Bundestag are located in Berlin, by the way. But that’s just a coincidence, of course.
The theory being, I’m assuming here, is that this kind of completely unjust robbery and redistribution will encourage the poor “good” German states to finally get their acts together already so the rich “bad” German states don’t have to pay their bills anymore. That’s just a theory, like I said, of mine. I must say, though, this redistribution initiative has certainly had a positive effect here in Berlin these past thirty, forty, fifty years. Once you ignore the fact that not a thing has changed.
Berlin Schlusslicht, Bayern Zahlmeister.
And costs everybody else in the country a whole lot of money. Berlin, my kind of town. My kind of town??
Berlin, the capital of Europe’s most successful economy, is surprisingly badly governed. The new airport, the city’s biggest flagship project, missed its seventh opening date earlier this year and may not open until 2021, ten years after it was originally supposed to. The jobless rate is among the highest in the country. Schools are dismal. Courts and police are so overworked that hundreds of millions of euros in fines and taxes have not been collected; and the city failed to keep tabs on Anis Amri, the jihadist who killed 11 people with a lorry last Christmas, despite warnings about him three weeks earlier…
Astonishingly for a capital city, Berlin makes Germany poorer. Without it, Germany’s GDP per person would be 0.2% higher. By comparison, if Britain lost London, its GDP per person would be 11.1% lower; France without Paris would be 14.8% poorer…
“We have a deeply held suspicion of anything that smacks of efficiency and competence.”
It has to be because the present is kind of, you know, sucky? And we don’t even want to talk about the past.
Berlin may have moved ahead a bit in the current ranking of German cities the magazine Wirtschafswoche and the real estate site Immobilienscout 24 put out (it moved up to place 39) but, alas, when it comes to economic power, jobs, real estate and quality of life, its still got a long way to go before it catches up to the winner, The City Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken (Munich).
Die Hauptstadt landet im Städteranking der Wirtschaftswoche und des Immobilien-Portals Immobilienscout 24 wie im Vorjahr auf Platz neun von 69 Großstädten, wenn die Dynamik am Standort gemessen wird. Wird das erreichte Niveau angegeben, kommt Berlin auf Rang 39 und hat sich somit um vier Plätze verbessert.
Poor? The city of Berlin is so poor that it can’t even afford the bullets for its policemen anymore.
Berlin’s plans to arm police patrols with taser guns would make it the first German state to implement extensive use of the electroshock weapon.
Makes good economic sense to me. Because then all they have to do is just hook them up to solar panels to recharge overnight.
Spätestens seitdem ein Beamter im Juni 2013 einen geistig verwirrten, bewaffneten Mann im Neptunbrunnen in Mitte erschoss, wird die politische Debatte um die Anschaffung der Taser geführt – auch und vor allem im Kontext des grotesk schlechten Zustands der Berliner Schießstände, an denen Polizisten den Einsatz ihrer Waffen in regelmäßigen Abständen trainieren müssen. In den vergangenen zwei Jahren hatten viele Beamte gar nicht mehr mit scharfer Munition üben, sondern lediglich ein Laser-Simulationsschießen als Ersatz absolvieren können.*
* That big long German sentence says, among other things, that Berlin cops don’t even have a decent firing range so they have to practice using laser simulation shooting.
Those were the days. Berlin used to be just (arm aber sexy) poor but sexy.
Now Berlin is poor but sexy, but poor. At least when it comes to trying to earn a living here.
The German capital pulls down the per capita income for the entire country. According to Eurostat (the European statistics office), Germany’s gross national product (with an emphasis on gross) would climb 0.2 percent if they could just find a way to factor out losers like us here in Berlin.
Poor? Yo capital is so poor it can’t afford to pay attention.
Die Hauptstadt drückt auf das Pro-Kopf-Einkommen der gesamten Bundesrepublik: Das Bruttoinlandsprodukt je Einwohner würde um 0,2 Prozent steigen, wenn man Berlin und seine Einwohner ausklammert, wie das Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) auf Basis von Daten des Europäischen Statistikamtes Eurostat errechnete.
Observing Hermann 