Why Are Germany’s Public Broadcasters Raising Their Mandatory Fee?

August 21, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: ARD, German, Germans, Germany, Media, Propaganda, Public Television, Spending, Waste, ZDF 4 Comments

Because they can.

It will be going up soon enough from 17.50 euros to 21 euros. Whether you even own a TV or not. The excuse this time: They are having trouble cutting costs within the time frame they had promised. There you have it; a state-run monopoly financed with mandatory fees from a public that is never asked if it wants to watch its party line programming or not. I don’t get it, either. How could an institution like that ever have trouble cutting costs?

Bis 2029 sollen die Rundfunkbeiträge von heute 17,50 Euro auf 21 Euro steigen. So jedenfalls wollen es ARD, ZDF und Deutschland-Radio. Und begründen das ausgerechnet damit, ihr Einsparvolumen bis 2024 sonst nicht erreichen zu können.

Gazprom Gerd Gets A Raise

August 20, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Corrupt Politicians, Corruption, Gas, Gazprom, Gerhard Schröder, German, Germans, Germany, Lobbies, Putin, Rosneft, SPD, Ukraine Leave a comment

You’ve got to have principles. As many as possible. For all eventualities. Take former German chancellor Gazprom Gerhard Schroeder (SPD), for instance. Please.

His nomination to the board of Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company – majority-owned by the Russian government – is breathtaking in its brazenness. You can’t really call it a sell-out, however. This guy sold out long ago.

Rosneft is under Western sanctions over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis. By pure coincidence, Schroeder, who calls Vladimir Putin his friend, has regularly criticized any moves to impose sanctions on Russia.

I know it’s hard to take an unpopular stand sometimes, especially when it is unethical, mercenary and just plain wrong, but he certainly is consistent here, at least.

“Schröder macht sich zum russischen Söldner.”

PS: Germany is predictably outraged about this (not) (or not particularly). But rest assured that if this had been a US-Amerkan oil company there would have been hell to pay.

German Of The Day: Heimaturlaub

August 18, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Asylum Seekers, German, Germans, Germany, Government spending, Language, Migrants, Refugees, Social Democracy, SPD, Vacation 1 Comment

That means home leave. And boy oh boy is Germany ever sticking to its guns on this one. When it comes to being super-mega-ultra strict about paying for asylum seekers’ vacation trips back home, that is.

As German Integrationsbeauftragte (integration commissioner) Aydan Özoguz (SPD) explains, Germany doesn’t foot the bill for just any asylum seeker. They have to be Ausnahmefällen (exceptional cases) before the German tax payer will be asked to send them on an all expenses paid flight back home – and back again.

Someone’s mother dying would be such an exceptional case, for instance. Anybody’s mother (it doesn’t have to be your own). Or maybe your ex-neighbor’s dog is suffering for an ingrown toenail. Or maybe you forgot to bring your favorite bowling ball with you when you were on the run and now you have the urgent need to go pick it up. For integration purposes, of course. You know, exceptional cases like that.

I’m not making this up, people. Not all of it anyway.

“Es kann gewichtige Gründe geben, warum ein anerkannter Flüchtling für kurze Zeit in seine Heimat reisen will.”

We’re Not Putin You On

August 17, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anti-Americanism, German, Germans, Germany, Merkel, Polls, Putin, Surveys, Trump 2 Comments

A new survey indicates that the vast majority of Germans hold Russia’s Vladimir Putin to be more trustworthy than US-Amerika’s Donald Trump.

In fairness to Donald Trump, however, these Germans also found Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un more trustworthy, too. Or so I assume.

Please note: These are people who even find Germany’s Angela Merkel more trustworthy. For crying out loud already.

The disparity in favor of Putin over Trump was most stark in Greece and Germany, where he outscored the US president by 31 and 14 points, respectively. In Germany, around a quarter of respondents said they had confidence in Putin, while only 11 percent said the same of Trump.

Germany Outraged Over Swiss Outrage About German Outrage

August 16, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Banking Data, Banks, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Spies, Stolen Goods, Switzerland, Tax evasion, Taxation Leave a comment

So that’s why Germany has indicted a Swiss citizen on suspicion of espionage for spying on German tax investigators.

It’s complicated and goes like this: The German state government of North Rhine-Westphalia (SPD – at that time) decided to openly deal in stolen goods by purchasing, from a criminal who worked for a Swiss bank, a CD containing details on German clients of said Swiss bank. These Germans were dodging German taxes and this illegally acquired CD was then used to pursue numerous tax evasion cases in Germany.

The Swiss, outraged by this, had one of their spies try to obtain information on tax officials in North Rhine-Westphalia and wiggle his way into their system but he got caught doing so.

The Germans, outraged by this, have now indicted him for this outrageous activity and are outraged, as usual, that anyone could ever be outraged by any of the outrageous stuff Germans are always doing, which, in and of itself, is also an outrage. Like I said, complicated. Outrageously complicated.

Zunächst beschaffte er laut Bundesanwaltschaft persönliche Daten von drei nordrhein-westfälischen Steuerfahndern. Später platzierte er demnach eine Quelle in der nordrhein-westfälischen Finanzverwaltung.

And They Speak Such Funny Englisch, Too

August 15, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, English, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Restaurants, Waiters 2 Comments

“It drives me up the wall the way waiters in Berlin restaurants only speak English,” one popular German politician has recently been quoted as saying. In Berlin. In German.

And I couldn’t agree more. Although the German government may have made it compulsory for asylum seekers to learn German, this rule unfortunately does not apply to EU residents and others who have come here to live and work and, well, it’s understandable that some Germans are mad as hell about it and aren’t going to take it anymore.

The English these waiters speak, you see, is often done so by natives (UK folks, Canadians, Australians, even the occasional US-Amerikaner or two) and therefore practically impossible for most Germans to understand.

“Vat do they mean with ‘coming right up’ or ‘you bet?’ Vat does betting have to do wis my order? If zhey are going to speak zheir language here zhey should at least have the decency to do so properly, verdammt nochmal!”

Germans are too relaxed on the issue and that it would never happen in Paris.

50,000 (2015), 100,000 (2016), 200,000 (2017)…

August 14, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Asylum Seekers, Courts, German, Germans, Germany, Law, Migrants, Refugees 2 Comments

Do you see a pattern here?

That’s the number of lawsuits filed by refugees in Germany who have been denied asylum here. Germany has increased the number of judges who decide these case to 2,000 but that still isn’t enough to deal with these numbers like these. Nor is a reduction in this work load anywhere in sight.

Nearly half of all asylum applicants rejected by Germany then take their cases before German courts. The BAMF refugee agency says 47 percent of its 119,000 negative decisions made so far this year went to appeal.

“Man kann sagen: Die Lage ist dramatisch. Es knarzt jetzt an allen Ecken und Enden.”

The Next Giant Leap For Womankind

August 13, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Berlin, Biology, Equality, Feminism, German, Germans, Government spending, Government Waste, Greens, SPD, The Left, Unisex, Urinals, Women 1 Comment

Peeing standing up. And people like you said it couldn’t be done.

The future will be taking place right here in Berlin, too. If Berlin’s breathtakingly progressive left-wing coalition government can succeed in pushing their zukunfstweisend (forward-thinking, groundbreaking) “toilet concept” through, that is.

It’s a common problem when you’re out and about. Nature calls – but the queue for the ladies is bladder-testingly slow to advance. Meanwhile your male companion waltzes in and out with what often feels like unfair speed. Now, the Berlin city authorities plan to address the issue of gender equality in public toilets, as they seek to redevelop the city’s conveniences. All locations that currently have a male-only “pissoir” (public urinal facility) should only exist in combination with unisex toilets, a 99-page city strategy paper called “the toilet concept” concludes.

Today the urinals, tomorrow the, I dunno, jock straps. Womankind marches on.

Hat das rot-grüne Berlin keine anderen Probleme?

German Brains Tick Differently

August 11, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Polls, Renewable energy, Solar energy, Surveys, Wind Energy 2 Comments

So let’s tock about it. “Germans Just Love Paying Sky-High Prices for Green Energy.”

Huh? I don’t get it, either. It’s kind of like Angela Merkel’s popularity ratings. How could she still be in office after that refugee number of hers? Yet her popularity ratings are still very high. It makes no sense.

So even though… The cost of the Energiewende is largely borne by German consumers, who pay a surcharge of around €20 ($23.61) on their energy bills. German households pay more for their electricity than in any other European country except for Denmark, where power costs €0.308 per kilowatt hour to Germany’s €0.298.

However, as the latest survey – conducted by Kantar Emnid on the AEE’s behalf – shows, enthusiasm for renewables is increasing if anything. “The survey results show the breadth of the societal consensus supporting the Energiewende in Germany,” said AEE deputy managing director Nils Boenigk.

The AEE’s survey that 95 percent saw the expansion of renewables as important or extremely important. That’s up from 93% in a similar survey last year.

95 Prozent der Deutschen für Ausbau von Ökostromanlagen.

What The SPD Stands For

August 10, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Hypocrisy Tags: Defense, Docial Democrats, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, NATO, Social Democracy, SPD 3 Comments

Stop Paying for Defense, for one thing.

It’s election time, you see. And Germans like to pretend they are pacifists (as the world’s third largest weapons exporter). So the SPD, once again, is going to take an unpopular stand (not) and rule out their country’s obligation to meet NATO’s two percent defense spending target – a target the Germans agreed to years ago and still refuse to meet. You’ve got to have backbone in politics.

The parliamentary leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) rejected NATO’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending target and called for strategic investment in the German armed forces in an interview published Thursday.

“We think this is the wrong way, and with the SPD in the government there will be no such thing.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Germans