Berlin Brandenburg Airport Finished After All

April 7, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, Berlin, Berlin Brandenburg International, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, LEGO, Politicians, Politics, Project Management, Satire, SPD, Willy Brandt International Airport Leave a comment

And in a record time of six months, too!

Now located at the city’s LEGOLAND Discovery Center, Berlin’s stunning new Willy Brandt International Airport is said to be made up of some 100,000 bricks.

Critics say that that the difficulties with handling today’s complex technology have been compounded by hasty, negligent work due to the intense time pressures. Underlying these problems appears to be a culture of political dishonesty. “Many politicians want prestigious large-scale projects to be inseparably connected with their names.”

Axeman With Nothing To Axe

March 8, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Airports, BER, Berlin, Berlin International Airport, German, Germans, Germany, Mismanagement, Politics, Projects, SPD 1 Comment

Hey, nobody else wanted the job.

Hartmut Mehdorn, former Deutsche Bahn boss, will now be taking over the unbelievable mess some here refer to as Berlin’s international airport or BER. I mean, it’s not really an airport, of course. It’s an urban myth maybe, or a spooky ghost town place or a money-guzzling black hole or maybe even all three of those things, but it ain’t no airport.

Anyways, Mehdorn turned things around by being a tough restructurer at the Deutsche Bahn and Air Berlin. You know, he axed a lot of stuff, people included (that’s why nobody likes him in Germany – there can never be any “losers” here). But how can you be a tough restructurer for something that doesn’t have any structure? Chaos theory is chaos theory and what’s more chaotic than the non-existent Berlin Internatinal Airport? Or did I miss something again and is it in a parallel universe we just haven’t been able to reach yet?

Good luck or something.

“Sie haben mich geholt, jetzt müssen sie mich auch aushalten.”

It Takes One To Know One

February 27, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Berlusconi, Clowns, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Grillo, Humor, Italy, John Kerry, Peer Steinbrueck, Satire, SPD 1 Comment

“Clearly a clown with a testosterone boost” himself, hapless Social Democrat chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck just got his dinner invitation cancelled by visiting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano after calling former premier Silvio Berlusconi and comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo “clowns.” Which they are, of course. But that’s the point. I think.

Speaking of clowns, Germany, never forget that we Americans have a right to be stupid – and that we exercise this right regularly. At least when we’re big important non-elected government officials we do. No matter where we are. No matter what country we happen to be visiting. Imaginary or not.

“The reason is, that’s freedom, freedom of speech. In America you have a right to be stupid — if you want to be.”

Klaus Wowereit Unpopular In Berlin For Some Reason These Days

February 5, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, Berlin, Berlin Brandenburg International Airport, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Politicians, Polls, Satire, SPD 2 Comments

According to the latest Forsa poll taken here in Berlin, only a small number of Berlin voters hold Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit to be trustworthy, straightforward, competent, able to take criticism and work in a team.

So like what’s the problem, right? He’s the perfect political animal.

No, but seriously folks… He’s so disliked at the moment that only two Pirate party politicians are less popular than he is. Party Klaus, I take my Hut off to you!

Nur eine Minderheit der Bürger hält Wowereit für glaubwürdig, gradlinig, kompetent, kritik- und teamfähig. Der einzige Wert, bei dem er im Vergleich zu früheren Umfragen zulegte, ist das Machtbewusstsein.

We Ain’t No Fools

November 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Banking, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Politics, Satire, SPD, Switzerland, Tax evasion Leave a comment

It’s either all or nothing when you’re the SPD and it comes to German tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts. So, uh, we’ll take nothing.

It has to do with principle or something. Rejecting the deal that would have allowed Germans with “undeclared assets in Switzerland to avoid punishment by making a one-off payment” was absolutely essential for Germany’s opposition Social Democrats. Because, well, because why was that again? Oh yeah, now I remember. Because by passing the Swiss tax deal, the Genossen (comrades) explain, this would have made “honest taxpayers feel like fools.”

So now the honest taxpayers the SPD is so concerned about lose out on roughly 180-200bn euros that they will have come up with themselves (because the SPD would never in their wildest dreams ever even consider cutting spending – reducing taxes – on the other side of the equation). But at least they won’t have to feel like they’re fools while doing so.

“The German upper house has missed a major opportunity to reach a fair, optimum and sustainable solution for all parties to definitively settle the bilateral tax issues.”

“We’re going to prove that three public-sector owners can build a project like this,”

November 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, BBI, BER International Airport, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Meglomania, Projects, Public Sector, Satire, Social Democrats, SPD 2 Comments

Wowereit said.

The investigation into the massive delays in opening Berlin’s new BER international airport have begun. Managers have been fired and architects have been sued — but what about the capital’s mayor, who has led the prestige project since 2001?

…Hochtief executives quickly learned that the project had changed since Wowereit had been put in charge. Now the walls were to be covered with expensive walnut veneer paneling. The roof was to be built in a futuristic, free-floating design. And the granite used for the floors at other major airports, like Hamburg and Düsseldorf, was no longer good enough. Berlin’s new terminal had to have expensive Jura limestone floors instead.

…Wowereit, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), also recognized early on that the one person who doesn’t hold any share of the blame is Wowereit himself.

“I don’t see what concrete accusations should be leveled against the supervisory board,” says Wowereit.

Nothing New And Nothing Improved

September 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Banking, Banks, Berlin, Debt Crisis, Elections, Euro Crisis, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties, Regulation, Socialism, SPD, Steinbrück, The Three Stooges Leave a comment

That tired old SPD.

With three tired old SPD guys trying to decide which one of them will have to be the one tired old SPD guy who will have to be the contender in next year’s election against the ridiculously popular Angela Merkel.

So like one of them, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, threw his hat into the ring yesterday, sort of.

His angle? Eat the banks. Split their investment and retail units and have them create their own rescue fund and make them be good and nice again like they used to be in the past (I guess) als die Welt noch in Ordnung war (when the world was still in order).

Been there, done that. Yawn already. Bring out the next stooge and let’s get him over with, too.

“Banks are service providers and not betting shops.”

German Teflon

September 5, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, BER, Berlin, Corruption, German, Germans, Germany, Government spending, Humor, Planning, Political Parties, Projects, Satire, SPD, Waste Leave a comment

Or Berlin Teflon, if you prefer. Whatever you want to call it, it’s way more teflony or teflonodelic than other kinds of Teflon out there.

Just ask Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) after the opening of the city’s new airport has been postponed yet again (no joke) and now won’t be ready nearly two full years later than planned. It’s his baby, you see.

“Not to mince words, Klaus Wowereit can pack his bags as Berlin mayor. Anyone who recklessly gambles with the future of a whole region, wasting hundreds of millions of euros (…) and covers up instead of looking into mistakes is not qualified to be managing a metropolis. Wowereit is not the only one who has failed in relation to the BER project, but he is the main culprit. People are not going to forget that. No matter what he does, his time is up.”

But what do you think will happen, meine Damen und Herren? Not a damned thing. This is Germany. And worse still, some politicians are just never held accountable for what they do, no matter what what they do, or don’t. But not just here. I know of this one guy from another country, for instance (the president of the something or the other) who could get caught robbing a 7-Eleven at gunpoint and nobody would care. It just ain’t right, I tell ya. But it’s da way of da woild.

German commentators are outraged over the postponement, with one (the key word here is one) calling on Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit to resign.

Decision Delayed On Delayed Airport’s Latest Delay

August 19, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, Berlin, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, Corruption, German, Germans, Germany, Government Waste, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Planning, Projects, Satire, SPD, Waste Leave a comment

Late for a delayed press conference, which was then delayed again, Berlin officials have now announced their decision to delay their decision to delay Berlin’s delayed Airport’s latest delay.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, a Social Democrat who has made the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport his flagship project, wasted no time in delaying further comment for later, unless delayed.

“Wowereit is making the city look more and more ridiculous in international eyes.”

Now I’ll Call Swiss Bankers Organized Criminals

August 12, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Informants, Politics, Populism, SPD, Swiss Banks, Switzerland, Tax evasion, Taxation Leave a comment

Unable or unwilling to address the real reason why Germans (who can) move their money out of this country to countries where their money is treated better, SPD boss Sigmar Gabriel has now accused Swiss banking of “legalizing tax evasion.”

Maybe if the German state wouldn’t burn as much money as it does, those being milked might consider leaving it here. And maybe before accusing others of criminal intent, he might want to ask himself if the now regular practice of dealing in stolen goods (buying CDs with lists of German Swiss account holders from informers) is really the way Vater Staat (Father State) ought to behave. And maybe, just maybe, this guy ought to think about trying something different than this tired old primative populism of his. Maybe.

“Was mich ärgert ist, dass wir hier offensichtlich nicht in der Lage sind, mal eine Schwerpunktstaatsanwaltschaft zu gründen.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: SPD