Nice try. But we all know that it was Obama who deflated the Obama euphoria.
In 2008 Obama was “the vessel into which liberals all over the world poured their fantasies.”
“It has gradually dawned on President Obama’s foreign fan club that their erstwhile hero is using methods that would be bitterly denounced if he were a white Republican.”
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Germans have begun bugging Americans to no end by bugging them about how bugging friends is unacceptable (OK, OK, certain Americans).
Given the high sensitivity of data privacy issues in Germany, which bugs the hell out of everybody already, the NSA spying scandal is bound to give Germans the gift that keeps on giving them ample opportunity to continue bugging us for as long as anyone is still willing to listen and even long after anyone is not.
“Every country in the world that is engaged in international affairs of national security undertakes lots of activities to protect its national security and all kinds of information contributes to that. All I know is that is not unusual for lots of nations.”
Now this is what I call a news item. Who would have thought that? The NSA, a US-Amerikan cryptologic intelligence agency expressly responsible “for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence” has been found to be collecting and analyzing foreign signals intelligence. In ze Europe, of all places.
Europeans would never do such a thing, you see. Nor would the governments of the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain among others ever never ever admit to having secret agreements with Washington to hand over their citizens’ private data to said agency.
Outrage: registered. Now, the issue of how far spy agencies in other countries actually knew, participated in or made use of the NSA’s surveillance program is another question entirely.
Or maybe it’s green or something. At any rate, Germany just managed to block the adoption of new emissions limits for cars produced in the European Union. This was necessary because, well, this legislation would have handicaped Germany’s automobile industry, focused as it is on the luxury car sector.
Germany has long seen itself as a leader when it comes to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. Indeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government remains committed to radically expanding its reliance on renewable energies in the coming decades.
But when it comes to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases German-made automobiles produce, Berlin is far less ambitious.
“It is a scandal.”
Verblüffender Befund (an amazing finding)? I don’t see how it could amaze anyone here – anyone who has ever gone shopping in Germany and then compared those prices to those you would pay in other European countries, that is.
Germans apparently aren’t aware of the fact that they have some of the lowest Lebenshaltungskosten (living costs or cost of living) in all of Europe. Of their immediate neighbors, it’s only cheaper to live in Poland and Czechia.
What is really amazing I find, however, is the fact that the Germans are able to enjoy these cheap prices while still having a higher per capita GDP than a lot of the European countries with a higher cost of living (Belgium, Denmark, France).
Beats the hell out of me. Hey, es darf eben nichts kosten here.
Verbraucher in Deutschland bekommen für ihren Euro mehr als die Menschen in den Nachbarländern. Lediglich bei den Nachbarn in Polen und Tschechien sind die Lebenshaltungskosten niedriger.
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.”
The issues at stake are not trivial ones. At the core of the Franco-German conflict is no less a matter than the question of how Europe can shake off the current crisis. Merkel is convinced this can only be achieved by implementing reforms — austerity, liberalization of the labor market and restructuring of social welfare systems.
But Hollande is unwilling to let Germany impose its model on France. He fears the European recession will only worsen if Berlin succeeds in implementing its austerity plans.
Even in the euro crisis, Germany is reluctant to be seen as sole leader. It badly needs a French economic revival to have a plausible partner at the top again.
“This is why, ultimately, it does not matter whether they like each other—that has not been the case for years.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected again today claims that her country was seeking hegemony in the European Union.
“We already are the largest economy in Europe,” she might have said. “Like, by a long shot. So why on earth would we want to do that? All we want to do is just keep exercising our predominant influence over all those other namby-pamby nations around us and with time, through peaceful terms and non-aggression, achieve world, I mean, total European domination.”
“Germany has a sometimes complicated role,” she actually said. “Because we are the largest economy – we are not the richest, but we are the largest. Therefore Germany will only act together with the others – hegemony is totally foreign to me.”
As recently reported, rich Germans have suddenly and inexplicably become the poor men of Europe, relatively speaking.
According to the latest ECB Vermögensstudie (wealth study), the Cypriots, of all people, are among the richest citizens in the euro zone. Germans, on the other hand, have come in at last place.
Wait a second. Wasn’t there something recently about Cyprus striking a 10-billion euro bailout deal with the European Union? I must have got that wrong (or the Cypriots certainly got that right).
Ausgerechnet die Zyprer gehören zu den reichsten Bürgern der Euro-Zone, Deutschland steht am Ende der Rangliste.
In the end, the Cypriots swallowed the bitter medicine. Facing national humiliation and a bleak future many complain their small nation has been forced to succumb to the will of a larger, merciless power – Germany.
And the Germans also have a clear and consistent analysis of the problem. They believe that fiscal profligacy or faulty business models lie at the heart of the crisis – and the solution is austerity, allied to structural reform. There are many who argue that this prescription is dangerous. But the anti-austerians have failed to come up with a set of alternative policies that is coherent enough to turn the intellectual tide.
…This Germanophobia is unfair. Behind all the shouting and the wrangling, German taxpayers will once again be funding the biggest single share of yet another eurozone bailout.
Observing Hermann 