“Free money”

April 15, 2025 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Communism, Employment, Experiments, Government, Income, Jobs, Redistribution, Socialism, Taxation, Theft, Waste Leave a comment

Brilliant. This is better than free lunch!

Why didn’t anyone ever think of this before?

Free money for all: Germany’s basic income experiment – One of the world’s most extensive studies on unconditional basic income was held in Germany. What does the experiment reveal?

… It is seen as a redistribution of wealth through taxes. In the activists’ calculation, Germany’s top earners — 10% of the population — would end up contributing a part of their income to everyone else. They estimate that 83% of the population would thereby have access to more money. The remaining 7% mid-earners would be unaffected by the redistribution scheme.

In times of rising populism, the basic income activists believe that this is a way to combat the population’s dissatisfaction due to wealth inequality.

Worry about the cost of living?

October 12, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Business, Cost of Living, Costs, Fees, German, Germans, Germany, Inflation, Language, Regulations, Taxation, Taxes Leave a comment

Why should Germans worry about that?

Vater Staat (Father State) has everything under control. Wie immer (as usual).

Germans fear rising cost of living – Inflation, migration, expensive housing — these are the things that most people in Germany are worried about, according to the latest study “Germans’ Fears 2024.”

And tax breaks for skilled German workers?

July 10, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Foreigners, German, Germany, Government, Language, Spending, Taxation, Taxes, Waste Leave a comment

Out of the question.

Wir sind doch nicht blöd (we aren’t stupid). Somebody has to pay for this.

Germany debates tax breaks for skilled foreign workers – The German government wants to grant skilled foreign workers a tax rebate if they take up employment in Germany. But the idea has been met with resistance.

Here’s your opportunity!

May 30, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Bureaucracy, Costs, Demographics, Economy, Employment, Energy, Europe, Germany, Jobs, Living, Migrants, Population, Taxation, Work Leave a comment

To find a job in a country that has…

some of the lowest salaries in Europe,
the highest taxes in Europe (if not in the world),
the highest social “contributions” (taxes) in Europe,
some of the lowest retirement pensions in Europe (unless you’re a civil servant),
the highest energy prices in Europe,
the highest water and sewage costs in Europe,
some of the highest real estate taxes and related bureaucratic costs in Europe,
some of the highest rents and real estate prices in Europe and
a catastrophic lack of available apartments.
I’ll stop there. For now.

So don’t miss out on this opportunity, millennials!

Desperate for millennial talent, Germany launches ‘Opportunity Card’ giving migrants a year to look for a job – Between an aging population and an economy in seemingly perennial stagnation, Germany faces some major challenges. Could a visa aimed at attracting more young, hungry workers be the answer?

Germany is set to launch an “Opportunity Card” just in time for the summer, aimed at young foreign workers hoping either to eventually secure a long-term job or simply work in the country for a while.

German of the day: Fehlbetrag

January 21, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: Budgets, German, Germany, Government spending, Language, Taxation, Waste Leave a comment

That means shortfall, deficit, missing amount.

You know, like when a government can’t burn the money it wants to burn because it already turned it to ashes?

Shortfalls could challenge Germany’s generosity – Germany has been one of the biggest spenders in the world on everything from social welfare to foreign aid. But national income has fallen and Germany’s government is dealing with a budget shortfall.

Your can hardly get any customers to visit your restaurant now?

December 28, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Budgets, Germany, Government, Government spending, Government Waste, Restaurants, Taxation, Taxes, VAT Leave a comment

I know! We’ll increase the sales tax so nobody comes to your restaurant at all anymore.

No need to thank us. We’re from the government and we’re here to help.

German budget woes trigger disaster warnings for restaurants – Owners who oppose return to higher pre-pandemic VAT rate are dismissed as scaremongers by economists.

Kemal Üres, owner of a tapas bar in Hamburg, has spent the past year telling his social media followers that thousands of businesses like his will be destroyed by a planned tax increase.

The man who calls himself the “Gastroflüsterer”, or restaurant whisperer, is campaigning to make the pandemic-era cut in value added tax on restaurant meals permanent. Otherwise, the German government’s decision to raise VAT from the 7 per cent rate in place since 2020 back up to 19 per cent in January would lead to higher prices, job cuts and as many as 30,000 bankruptcies, he said.

Time to say goodbye

December 5, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Budgets, CO2, Coal, Economics, Germany, Government Waste, Greens, Renewables, Solar, Spending, Taxation, Wind Leave a comment

To your latest Green fantasies.

The money. She is gone, señor.

Germany’s Greens thought their moment had finally come… But then, last month, Germany’s top court handed down a ruling that effectively stripped the ruling coalition of the full financial firepower it needs to make those ambitions a reality.

The bombshell ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court blew a €60 billion hole in the country’s finances, leaving the government scrambling to fill the gap. At the same time, the ruling sharply limits the government’s ability to draw from special funds created to circumvent the country’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP except in times of emergency.

These special funds were supposed to help finance several projects which are core to the Greens’ agenda — such as the transition of steel plants to hydrogen energy, subsidies for battery and microchip production, and the modernization of the country’s railway network.

More wiggle, wiggle, wiggle

November 27, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Budgets, Debt, Germany, Government Waste, Politicians, Spending, Taxation, Waste Leave a comment

They’re still squirming. 1) No money but lots and lots of things to spend it on (spending voters’ taxes is how they get votes). 2) Can’t raise taxes any higher (voters are already being taxed to death).

Let’s see. 3) There’s still this debt brake thing we could tweak (except we would need to change the German constitution and the opposition won’t help us).

This adds up to… Are you serious? Do you honestly mean to tell us that we now have no choice but to set priorities and, gulp, cut spending? OMG we’re all gonna die!

Germany’s budget crisis spurs calls to change its borrowing limits – Germany’s budget crisis has given new momentum to reforming self-imposed borrowing limits even among the opposition conservatives, as hunger for sorely needed investment trumps an earlier political obsession with fiscal rectitude.

“Lost its luster?”

November 2, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Costs, Debt, Energy, Germany, Greens, Political Parties, Renewables, Taxation, Utopia Leave a comment

It’s called being confronted with reality.

This is a classic German Green phenomenon. As soon as they’re given power, they promptly proceed to shoot themselves in the foot by proposing “solutions” to non-existent problems that “regular folks” simply can’t understand, much less afford. They’ve been given enough rope, in other words.

How Germany’s Greens Lost Their Luster – The party was riding high when it entered the government two years ago. Now it is stumbling, blamed for driving voters to the far right.

What a difference two years make. And a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And rising energy costs. And a host of missteps that some even within the party concede has stalled the Greens’ momentum.

Today the Greens are widely viewed as a drag on the government of the Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which one poll gave a mere 19 percent approval rating. The Greens have drawn withering attacks from even their own coalition partners. To their opponents, the Greens have overreached on their agenda and become the face of an out-of-touch environmental elitism that has alienated many voters, sending droves to the far right.

It’s a cover-up!

August 10, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: Angela Merkel, Government Waste, Politicians, Taxation, Taxes Leave a comment

I mean, a makeup! A makeup cover-up? I don’t make this stuff up. Just look at the before and after photos.

The one on the left was taken before she ripped German taxpayers off of €55,000. The one on the right is after. She pocketed that cash, people.

Germans funded £47k in hair and makeup expenses for Angela Merkel since leaving office – Despite stepping down from her prominent role almost two years ago, Merkel continues to submit expense claims to the federal government.

As revealed in documents obtained by Tagesspiegel through a Freedom of Information Act request, the former German Chancellor keeps filing her expenses to the federal government.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Taxation