But the German state governments have only just begun collecting the money. It’s a sum that is certainly ausbaufähig (capable of being developed, i.e. increased).
Coronavirus: German cities issue 35,000 fines to rulebreakers – Germany’s biggest cities have collected more than €3 million in penalties from violators of coronavirus restrictions. Munich and Hamburg, which have been hit hardest by the pandemic, have doled out the most fines.
That means fine. As in money. As in Corona money.
Most of Germany imposes $59 fine for mask-wearing breaches – German Chancellor Angela Merkel says most of her country’s states have agreed to impose a minimum fine of 50 euros ($59) for breaching mask-wearing rules as coronavirus infections rise again
Hmmm. In theory, Germany is a federal Government and this should be left up to state governments to decide but the times, as we can see, they are a changin’.
In decentralized Germany, imposing and loosening virus-related restrictions is a matter for the 16 state governments, so a patchwork of rules has emerged in recent months. Some areas have imposed no punishment for people who don’t wear masks as required in public transport, shops and elsewhere while others have imposed high fines.
In fines. Up until now.
But would it matter if Volkswagen paid another 30+ billion to German customers too? Who would trust this company anymore, whatever they paid? What did Warren Buffet say? “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
VW to Sound Out Settlement in German Car-Owners’ Mass Lawsuit – Volkswagen AG and German consumer group VZBV agreed to settlement talks in a court case involving hundreds of thousands of drivers who claim that their diesel cars lost value in the wake of the emission-cheating scandal.
No, that doesn’t mean bus money. It means fine or penalty.
And that’s what the parents of the kids who have been taking part in Joan of Arc’s, I mean, Greta Thunberg’s wackedelic Fridays for Future (FFF) demonstrations will now have to be paying. At least here in Germany.
German school authorities are starting to get tired of all the truancy going on or something and have begun handing out fines starting at 88.50 euros a pop. Jeepers. That might get FFF-freakin’ expensive before too long, folks.
Eltern von Klimaschutzdemonstranten müssen Bußgeld bezahlen – Seit Monaten demonstriert Fridays for Future für besseren Klimaschutz. Weil das auch während der Schulzeit geschieht, wird in Mannheim das Ordnungsamt aktiv.
No, wait a second. I mean… Five billion dollars!
The European Union hit Alphabet Inc.’s Google with a record antitrust fine of €4.34 billion ($5.06 billion) and ordered changes to its business that could loosen the company’s grip on its biggest growth engine: mobile phones.
In the EU’s sharpest rebuke yet to the power of a handful of tech giants, the bloc’s antitrust regulator found Wednesday that Google had abused the dominance of its Android operating system, which runs more than 80% of the world’s smartphones, to promote and entrench its own mobile apps and services, particularly the company’s search engine…
As part of the decision, the EU ordered Google to cease requirements that push phone makers to pre-install Google’s web browser Chrome, make Google the default search engine on their phones, and offer payments for exclusively pre-installing Search.
“Today’s decision rejects the business model that supports Android, which has created more choice for everyone, not less.”
That means top of the class.
And that’s what Germany is when it comes to all things green and environmental and renewable and organic and… You get the picture, right? Well, that’s what I thought up until recently, too. Turns out they’re not very good at restricting the use of nitrates, though.
Germany ‘to be fined BILLIONS‘ for breaking EU environmental laws after ECJ ruling – The ECJ ruled that Germany breached a Brussels directive by failing to take enough action to tackle water pollution. The verdict by the EU’s highest court, based in Luxembourg, came after growing concerns about the levels of nitrates in German water. Nitrates are widely used as fertilisers, but the chemical can harm the environment and cause health risks through water pollution.
Der Europäische Gerichtshof in Luxemburg hat Deutschland wegen Verletzung von EU-Recht verurteilt, weil die Bundesregierung zu wenig gegen Nitrate im Grundwasser unternommen hat. Geklagt hatte die EU-Kommission.
Little old ladies just don’t seem to understand the world we are now living in. Not that I do, either. But still.
In Germany, you can be arrested and fined €1,350 for finding jokes like these funny (and then sharing it on your Facebook page): “Do you have anything against refugees? Yes. Machine guns and hand grenades.”
And using some lame excuse like “I like to pass on funny things” won’t help you out here one little bit, ma’am. You are guilty of hate crime. Hate crime, you ask? What is hate crime? Well, hate crime, when it comes to jokes, is kind of like thoughtcrime only… No, wait. It is thoughtcrime. That’s precisely what it is. Now just sit back and relax, ma’am. We will purge that abominable joke from your mind with the help of this little red button right here.
„Ich leite gern spaßige Sachen weiter.”
That means nightmare. You know, like Nightmare on Elm Street? Or Nightmare at Deutsche Bank?
Read my lips, the usual suspects are saying: Everything is fine, the German government is not preparing a bailout, there have been no secret talks with the chancellor and there is nothing here that needs to be rescued in the first place. Now say that ten times really fast.
The German government denied it was working on a rescue of Deutsche Bank as Germany’s biggest lender boosted its balance sheet by selling its British insurance business on Wednesday.
Deutsche is facing a $14 billion fine from the Department of Justice, and concerns over its funding pushed its shares to a record low on Tuesday and heightened concerns about the health of the financial sector in Europe’s largest economy.
“Die Situation des Konzerns ist viel besser, als sie von außen wahrgenommen wird.”
Now they need American ones, too.
Brussels on Thursday sought WTO approval for trade sanctions against Washington worth $12 billion a year.
“On the one side we have $90 billion (70 billion euros) of illegal financing of Airbus by the EU and on the other side we have $3.0-$4.0 billion for Boeing.”
And in this case it will be about 300,000 euros per day.
European authorities have taken Germany to court for failing to implement the E.U. Data Retention Directive.
The European Commission announced on Thursday that it wants the European Court of Justice to impose a fine of just over €315,000 (US$391,866) a day.
The Data Retention Directive requires telephone companies and ISPs to store huge amounts of telecommunications information, including data about email, phone calls and text messages, for law enforcement purposes.
So much for Germany being the Musterschüler (model student) in all things EU. Germans don’t like this law because they live in a POLICE STATE or something (albeit one that’s all in their minds). It’s not that Germans don’t trust their fellow Germans or anything, you see, it’s just that they don’t trust their fellow Germans.
Hey, they should know. Where there’s smoke there’s fire and all that? I guess I’d pay up, too.
Weil Berlin geltendes EU-Gesetz über die Vorratsdatenspeicherung nicht in nationales Recht übertragen hat, hat die EU-Kommission Deutschland vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof verklagt.
Observing Hermann 