We’re From The Berlin City Government

The “red-red-green” city government. And we’re here to help.

Control

A disaster foretold – After a year, Berlin’s experiment with rent control is a failure. Rents may be down, but so is the supply of homes.

”I WORRY ABOUT Berlin,” says Rolf Buch, a born and bred Rhinelander. The chief executive of Vonovia, Europe’s biggest residential-property firm, thinks that the city’s policy of capping rents has achieved very little good, but caused severe collateral damage. Even if the federal Constitutional Court declares the rent cap unconstitutional in the next few months, as many expect it to do, Berlin will not go back to the status quo ante. Protests are here to stay, Mr Buch reckons.

 

German Of The Day: Gesichtskondom

That means face condom.

German

You know, face mask? I don’t make this up that German allows you to make this stuff up. It’s a popular national pastime.

Pandemic Inspires More Than 1,200 New German Words.

Like English, German also offers the possibility of combining of words, especially nouns. The resulting noun chains in English typically feature spaces or hyphens between the different elements, while German ones normally appear as one word. The German penchant for creating complex compound nouns has long been the stuff of comedy. Mark Twain devotes part of his essay on The Awful German Language to these “curiosities,” and many people are familiar with ones like “der Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän” (the Danube Steamship Navigation Company Captain).

 

Nice Europeans

Come in last.

Nice

Germany should have led the world at handling the pandemic. But experts slam Merkel’s vaccine response as a disaster.

“Germany is the architect of the European failure because Germany and Merkel were behind pushing for the European process that was a failure from the beginning,” Julian Reichelt, the managing editor of Germany’s largest selling tabloid newspaper Bild, told CNN.

“She wanted to make it all about Europe and her being a great European,” he says.

German Of The Day: Wer ist Schuld?

That means who is guilty, who is responsible?

Vaccines

It started out with not enough Covid vaccines being ordered (Germany left that up to Brussels – big mistake). Now, after proclaiming the efficacy of Covid quick tests to make up for this lack of vaccines, not enough of these were ordered either.

Who is to blame? That’s easy. It’s never Angela Merkel, ever. See the guy up there on the right? That’s her health minister.

Corona-Pandemie – Schnelltest-Chaos spitzt sich zu – Wer ist schuld?

Unhappy?

Who cares? You didn’t vote for me. As a matter of fact, nobody did. Other than non-elected officials like me, that is.

Unhappy

You can’t fire me. And I don’t quit. I’m not a quiter. I’m a loser maybe, but I’ll quit when I decide to, thank you.

Germans unhappy with EU’s handling of vaccine scheme – Roughly half of Germans believe the EU has handled the coronavirus vaccine rollout badly, according to an opinion poll. It comes as separate research finds a majority want an end to the country’s lockdown…

The United Kingdom has given at least one jab to 31% of its population, while Germany has so far at least partially vaccinated 7.63% of its population (that actually means more like 3.5, of course), according to figures compiled by Our World In Data.

That is marginally above the EU average of 7.60 people for every 100.

Would You Place The Largest Opposition Party In Your Country Under Domestic Surveillance?

Would you have the FBI spy on, say, the Democrats? Yeah, I would too. But that’s not the point. The point is, first of all, that this guy down here looks really, really mean.

AfD

The second and more important point is that by placing the largest opposition party in your country under domestic surveillance you are placing a very large percentage of your electorate under suspicion of being, in this case, Nazis. You can do that here in Germany. Coming to your country soon too?

Germany Places Right-Wing Opposition Party Under Domestic Surveillance – Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put the country’s largest opposition party under surveillance as a potential threat to the country’s constitution, according to public (they mean state TV) broadcaster ARD and other media outlets. The move affects dozens of lawmakers who are in the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.

I can’t shake the feeling that the other political parties – and they are all on the same sheet of music here – don’t welcome competition from other political parties. Especially from those who have already stolen a considerable number of your voters.

“Angela Merkel’s government is trying to stigmatize us and to really put us in the Nazi corner.”

Germany Extends Coronavirus Lockdown To The Year 2525

Where everything you think, do, and say, is in the pill you took today…

2525

Germany’s national government and states are set to extend the COVID-19 lockdown by three weeks, to March 28…

According to the draft text, up to five adults from two households would be allowed to gather from March 8, with up to 10 adults allowed in areas with low infection rates. Under current rules, each household can only socialize with one other person.

The German government is also expected to appeal to citizens to avoid domestic and foreign travel over the Easter period.

Current lockdown measures have been credited with helping bring down daily new infection numbers.

However, experts last week warned that the declining infection rate had stabilized and even started climbing slightly, with growing concerns about the spread of new virus variants.

The number of coronavirus cases in Germany went up by 3,943 to 2,451,011, according to figures released early on Monday by the country’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. COVID-linked fatalities went up by 358, to 70,463 in total.

We’re From Your Leftist Government

And we’re here to help.

Mieten

As usual, everything Berlin’s “red-red-green” city government touches turns to Scheiße. As usual, the media clones pretends that this is somehow news.

Berlin’s Rent Controls Are Proving to Be a Disaster – A year ago, the leftist government of Germany’s capital region imposed central planning on the city’s housing market. That was a bad move.

A year ago, a rent cap took effect in the city that was unprecedented in Germany. For all apartments built before 2014, rents were frozen at whatever they were on Jun. 18, 2019. Tenants in those units can also force landlords to lower rents defined as “excessive…”

These data confirm what economists had warned about — and what’s been observed in other cities that dabbled in rent controls, such as San Francisco or Cambridge, Massachusetts. The caps represent a windfall to one group of tenants: those, whether rich or poor, who are already ensconced in regulated apartments. Simultaneously, they hurt all other groups — especially young people and those coming from other cities — by all but shutting them out of the market.

Implant A Chip In Me While You’re At It

So much for the infamous German obsession with privacy and data security.

Impf

“They’re from the government and they’re here to help us, honey. What could possibly go wrong?”

Most Germans keen on COVID vaccination passport – Around 60% of Germans surveyed for a new poll said they were in favor of immunity passports. Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her support, albeit only when most residents have been offered the shot.

“When we have made a vaccination offer to enough people and some of them refuse to be vaccinated, we will have to consider whether there should be openings and access only for vaccinated people in certain areas.”

German Of The Day: Trendwende

That means trend reversal. It goes like this: As soon as the numbers of Covid-19 infections clearly begin rising again – and that’s what they’re doing –  the head virologist what’s in charge announces this as great news. That is, he spins it as if the numbers are actually dropping.

Trend

That’s just how virologists work, I guess. If you ever doubted that nobody knows what the hell is going on with this pandemic here in Germany, doubt no more.

In Schottland habe man gesehen, dass der Impfstoff von AstraZeneca das Hospitalisierungsrisiko dramatisch senke. Die Rate sei um 94 Prozent zurückgegangen. „Das ist fantastisch“, sagte Wieler.