Germany's biggest and best-known beer festival, the Oktoberfest, is currently going on in Munich. Correct me if I am wrong, but this normally starts on the last but one Saturday in September and runs usually until the first Sunday in October, though if there is a public holiday on the Monday (German Reunification Day is October 3rd), that too is included. Correction - a quick countback tells me that in fact if the last Saturday of the month is the 30th, it will start on the 16th, not the 23rd, the duration of the event being 16-17 days.
The major five Munich breweries will have their large tents with beer as may be expected (they are also intelligent enough to provide non-alcoholic drinks, Munich being Munich some people will arrive in cars and drivers are discouraged from drinking and driving), along with Bavarian-biased food (watch your cholesterol level) and the usual entertainment from the oompah bands. Smaller breweries also put in an appearance, and their tents also get crowded.
Well worth the visit, thousands of tourists come annually, and it gets crowded at the weekends which means that it is better to go on a midweek evening.
The event is held in the area called Auf der Wiesn (on the meadow), has a lengthy history that you can read up elsewhere, and is by any stretch a big event. You will already have missed it this year (2013), but the parade on opening days, with dray carts carrying barrels of beer and being pulled by some of the most magnificent horses that you have ever seen, from the centre of Munich and leading to the Wiesn, is well worth seeing.
Alongside but not within the festival grounds themselves is a funfair with the whole range of the typical funfair experience.
One ride that I can personally recommend is what the Germans call the Olympia Looping ("Looping" is one of those strange German borrowings from English that does not seem to have been copied directly). I have always called this the Olympic Rings though this is not the official name. There are five large rings around which a roller-coaster goes very quickly - all the way round the rings.
This is a particularly interesting (!) experience to try when you have come out of a beer tent after drinking two masses (a mass = a 1-litre beer glass) of strong beer. I did this both years upon my visits in 1994 & 1995, once accompanied by friends who wanted to throttle me for taking them on this ride, and once alone. Not incidentally recommended after drinking 3 masses or more (if you are capable of standing up after drinking 4 masses, you are obviously qualified as someone who is alcohol resistant!).
This still is part of the funfair - that I have checked. A YouTube video, borrowed without permission, follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZNZX9BW5tw
Try it some time and enjoy!
For my female readership, you might also be interested in the traditional Bavarian dress, the dirndl. Not every woman by any means at the Oktoberfest can be seen in a dirndl (some even turn up in lederhosen!), but some do choose to wear one and get themselves noticed. Not every dirndl is all that elegant, but at their best they have definitely an eye-catching quality. There are some interesting pieces on the Internet on how to make your own (my late mother would have been fascinated at the thought).
The word "Dirndl" is also interesting for a linguist. The origin of the word comprises two parts. It was a "Kleid" (dress") for a "Dirne" (think of the old English word "maiden", German plural incidentally adds an "n", so "Dirnen"). Hence Dirnen-Kleid - a maiden's dress. Given a few generations, that got shortened to Dirndl.
And for young foreign men out there who want to impress young Bavarian women with their command of German, do not wharrever start calling them "Dirne(n)" these days!
This once polite word has descended into meaning a slovenly woman with the lowest possible moral standards! It is pejorative to say the least! Go and check "Dirne" on the German-English dictionary on dict.leo.org if you want some modern equivalent English words! Interesting, though, how words change, isn't it?
Sunday, 29 September 2013
Friday, 27 September 2013
Banking bonuses and the usual conservative whining
Firstly read the following item, the sequel to which has reappeared in the news this week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/business/global/european-union-agrees-on-plan-to-cap-banker-bonuses.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Question:
How much does a banking bonus amount to?
If it equals one year's salary, how much is that?
Looking at this situation carefully, there is one point that you may conclude:
We are not talking 40,000 or 50,000 anything - be it Euro, Dollars or joke currencies like the pound.
400,000, 500,000, even 4 million or 5 million?
You would complain tomorrow if you received a bonus of $400,000 or €400,000? And not $800,000 or €800,000?
There are a very large number of people, many of them elderly and unemployable, in the UK who were told by the Tory government that they had to live on 53 pounds a week (= 2,756 pounds a year). A banker cannot do anything if he only gets 400,000 a year???? In fact he would leave his job and go elsewhere if that is all he were offered?
And the UK government thinks that that is critical? And the people forced to live on 53 pounds a week are just a pain in the rear portions? Well in the latter instance of course they think that, but then they despise people who were not born into wealth and had to live increasingly in the McDonalds economy!
Has a perspective gone missing here? Somewhere?
Well the banks' response is that they would have to upgrade their salaries to meet the demands of the new rules.
So the banks, if they are going to stay, have to incorporate the bonuses into their employees' salaries. And when the next crisis comes they will have to lay more people off!
Newsflash - it is 2008 again! Who caused the financial crash? The people living on 53 pounds a week? NO! The European Union? NO! The banks????? THE BANKS!!!! All the nice extra money that they can gamble with and lose and then get bailed out by governments so they can gamble again, and take more risks and lose yet more and get bailed out yet again???? And after the bailing out of course, the government will have even less money, so people regarded as unemployable will have only 43 pounds a week to live on!
The next crisis will come! They will lay off loads of people - as they did in 2008. So what's new???? That is unless some action is taken, globally, to stop banks acting like casinos!
For the record, the city where I now live, Frankfurt, is also a major banking centre. Not as big as London, maybe, but important enough. The German government has been the architect of the above legislation, and yet there isn't a lot of crying from the banks here for some reason! Major international banks may leave? Think of the business that they will lose in the world's fourth-biggest economy! Meanwhile as severe as Hartz IV here is for the people stuck on it, there is no forcing people to live on as little as 70 Euro a week yet!
It is time for some reality. It is time for some pragmatism. It is time to realise that we need to resolve the difficulties at all levels of society - my usual theme of creating decent jobs at all levels, full employment, less need for government to be bailing people out, wherever they are.
But feeding the needs of the greedy banking community and not expecting more disciplined and less frivolous behaviour from them? That should not be a high priority. The banking community should be there to serve, not to gamble or gorge itself!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/business/global/european-union-agrees-on-plan-to-cap-banker-bonuses.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Question:
How much does a banking bonus amount to?
If it equals one year's salary, how much is that?
Looking at this situation carefully, there is one point that you may conclude:
We are not talking 40,000 or 50,000 anything - be it Euro, Dollars or joke currencies like the pound.
400,000, 500,000, even 4 million or 5 million?
You would complain tomorrow if you received a bonus of $400,000 or €400,000? And not $800,000 or €800,000?
There are a very large number of people, many of them elderly and unemployable, in the UK who were told by the Tory government that they had to live on 53 pounds a week (= 2,756 pounds a year). A banker cannot do anything if he only gets 400,000 a year???? In fact he would leave his job and go elsewhere if that is all he were offered?
And the UK government thinks that that is critical? And the people forced to live on 53 pounds a week are just a pain in the rear portions? Well in the latter instance of course they think that, but then they despise people who were not born into wealth and had to live increasingly in the McDonalds economy!
Has a perspective gone missing here? Somewhere?
Well the banks' response is that they would have to upgrade their salaries to meet the demands of the new rules.
So the banks, if they are going to stay, have to incorporate the bonuses into their employees' salaries. And when the next crisis comes they will have to lay more people off!
Newsflash - it is 2008 again! Who caused the financial crash? The people living on 53 pounds a week? NO! The European Union? NO! The banks????? THE BANKS!!!! All the nice extra money that they can gamble with and lose and then get bailed out by governments so they can gamble again, and take more risks and lose yet more and get bailed out yet again???? And after the bailing out of course, the government will have even less money, so people regarded as unemployable will have only 43 pounds a week to live on!
The next crisis will come! They will lay off loads of people - as they did in 2008. So what's new???? That is unless some action is taken, globally, to stop banks acting like casinos!
For the record, the city where I now live, Frankfurt, is also a major banking centre. Not as big as London, maybe, but important enough. The German government has been the architect of the above legislation, and yet there isn't a lot of crying from the banks here for some reason! Major international banks may leave? Think of the business that they will lose in the world's fourth-biggest economy! Meanwhile as severe as Hartz IV here is for the people stuck on it, there is no forcing people to live on as little as 70 Euro a week yet!
It is time for some reality. It is time for some pragmatism. It is time to realise that we need to resolve the difficulties at all levels of society - my usual theme of creating decent jobs at all levels, full employment, less need for government to be bailing people out, wherever they are.
But feeding the needs of the greedy banking community and not expecting more disciplined and less frivolous behaviour from them? That should not be a high priority. The banking community should be there to serve, not to gamble or gorge itself!
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Winning a court case
Given that we have created a society in which lawyers (and accountants - but that part of the story I will leave for another day) can always find work and usually lead relatively easy lives (which is more often than not the case for the incompetent ones as well), it intrigues me how rarely some of us ever encounter them.
My father hardly had any dealings with them, apart from when he bought the (small, terraced) house that he had, and when he had to detail his belongings at the end of his life - a will possibly overstates it though.
Myself I have had to deal with them three times when buying and selling the various places that I owned between the ages of 27 and 39. Then there were the visits to see them after my father died (in 1988) and similarly following my mother's death in 2000. Her property was eventually sold for a price that would not have bought a decent sized bathroom in the South-East of England. In 38 years after my father originally bought it, it hardly became the desired object in the best area of town, it was simply what they could afford.
Since 2000 I had had little by way of dealings with lawyers. No need, and anyway they are an extravagance that I would not be able to afford, normally.
Until the business arose about chasing up the customers who had not paid me, that is. I contacted a team of lawyers in Antwerp, Belgium, about chasing up the money that I was owed by JTI Development in France and 2BTranslated in Galmaarden, Belgium (see my previous posts on the subject). Their collection service works on the "No collection, no payment" principle. It took several weeks to get moving.
The first stage they carried out efficiently. When it came to taking it to the second stage though, I would have needed €250 for both cases in the small claims court in France and Belgium to pursue the matter. Being permanently broke (as these people had not paid me what I was owed, and finding another job required getting past the stupid predominant ageism out there), this meant 3-4 wasted months to find the money.
JTI eventually beat me to the punch and went into insolvency in June this year - not before they had failed to pay several other people for the translation work undertaken! Rogues!
We have meanwhile been pursuing 2BT, who at the last count were still in business. For the first time in my life (at my age!) I was represented as a plaintiff in a court case. In Herne in Belgium (a relatively obscure place which I have never visited, but important in its own region). Not merely did I have my case presented in court (I was not present I hasten to add) - I won!
By default. 2BT failed to put in an appearance, so the next step is for the Belgian courts to send in the bailiffs and get my money. I suspect that this might be summat of a Pyrrhic victory though - I would not be surprised if they too decided to liquidate themselves out of trouble. If they do pay up, apparently I am guaranteed 85% of my money due (1,494 * 85/100 = app 1,269 Euro). Peanuts to the billionaires out there, but it will put my personal accounts back on the positive side of the balance, and the German tax authorities will get the money that they are due without problems.
So it all comes down to the people who have owed me money for 11 months finally being honest and honourable enough to pay up. Whether the court system can handle that we will have to see.
My father hardly had any dealings with them, apart from when he bought the (small, terraced) house that he had, and when he had to detail his belongings at the end of his life - a will possibly overstates it though.
Myself I have had to deal with them three times when buying and selling the various places that I owned between the ages of 27 and 39. Then there were the visits to see them after my father died (in 1988) and similarly following my mother's death in 2000. Her property was eventually sold for a price that would not have bought a decent sized bathroom in the South-East of England. In 38 years after my father originally bought it, it hardly became the desired object in the best area of town, it was simply what they could afford.
Since 2000 I had had little by way of dealings with lawyers. No need, and anyway they are an extravagance that I would not be able to afford, normally.
Until the business arose about chasing up the customers who had not paid me, that is. I contacted a team of lawyers in Antwerp, Belgium, about chasing up the money that I was owed by JTI Development in France and 2BTranslated in Galmaarden, Belgium (see my previous posts on the subject). Their collection service works on the "No collection, no payment" principle. It took several weeks to get moving.
The first stage they carried out efficiently. When it came to taking it to the second stage though, I would have needed €250 for both cases in the small claims court in France and Belgium to pursue the matter. Being permanently broke (as these people had not paid me what I was owed, and finding another job required getting past the stupid predominant ageism out there), this meant 3-4 wasted months to find the money.
JTI eventually beat me to the punch and went into insolvency in June this year - not before they had failed to pay several other people for the translation work undertaken! Rogues!
We have meanwhile been pursuing 2BT, who at the last count were still in business. For the first time in my life (at my age!) I was represented as a plaintiff in a court case. In Herne in Belgium (a relatively obscure place which I have never visited, but important in its own region). Not merely did I have my case presented in court (I was not present I hasten to add) - I won!
By default. 2BT failed to put in an appearance, so the next step is for the Belgian courts to send in the bailiffs and get my money. I suspect that this might be summat of a Pyrrhic victory though - I would not be surprised if they too decided to liquidate themselves out of trouble. If they do pay up, apparently I am guaranteed 85% of my money due (1,494 * 85/100 = app 1,269 Euro). Peanuts to the billionaires out there, but it will put my personal accounts back on the positive side of the balance, and the German tax authorities will get the money that they are due without problems.
So it all comes down to the people who have owed me money for 11 months finally being honest and honourable enough to pay up. Whether the court system can handle that we will have to see.
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
German elections 2013 - after the event
Before I go any further let me state that most German conservatives are less radical and not so extreme as their American or British counterparts. In the US think of Ford, Eisenhower etc, in the UK, think of Heath, MacMillan and the like.
So that being said, Sunday night was a good night to be a German conservative. Almost a great night. In the vote for the Chancellorship, Angela Merkel pounded her SDP opponent, Peer Steinbrück. Given that Steinbrück comes from his party's "business" wing and that he was close to the banks and the bankers, it should not have been that surprising. If you want a conservative why not pick one who claims to be one in the first place? Merkel would make at least as much sense.
Monday morning the newspapers were even talking of a triumphant night for Merkel.
Well it almost was.
Except for one rather unfortunate detail.
Back to Germany's amazing proportional representation voting system. And back to its rule (designed to keep the extremists out) that a party must win 5% of the vote to be elected to the German Parliament - the Bundestag.
Merkel's CDU, along with its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, won 41.2% of the vote. Between them they won 5 seats short of the number needed to win an absolute majority. That has not been done, I believe, since the days of Adenauer.
Last time round, this might not have been a serious issue. Their usual government partner - the notably more conservative still FDP - won 15% of the vote in 2009. The problem being since that they were not capable of persuading the CDU/CSU to agree to the tax cuts that they promised their voters, and spent most of the four years looking like a party that was totally at odds with itself. Down from 15% to 4.7% in four years. Less than 5% of the vote, say goodbye to the Bundestag.
The new conservative party, the AfD, which was pushing an agenda for getting Germany out of the Euro also got that percentage. A one-issue bucket party - do not expect them to go much further.
Along with the Pirate party (only 2.2% of the vote - their rise in the regional parliaments in the past couple of years failed to go anywhere in the national elections, which given the emptiness of their agenda should not be a surprise), they also failed to qualify for the Bundestag.
In fact only four parties did. Apart from the CDU/CSU, the SDP (Social Democrats), the German Green Party (die Grünen - whose vote also collapsed from where they were when in the regional elections even quite recently to 8.4%, when 16-17 looked possible only a few weeks ago), and die Linke (the offshoot of the former East German Communist Party with a few renegades who left the SDP as it was no longer radical enough).
To rule, the CDU/CSU will have to form an alliance with one of these three. Natural allies they are not, any of them. The thought of the CDU/CSU and die Linke forming an alliance is hysterically funny. Even if they were the two parties to gain votes at this election (the public will usw). Won't happen .... This year, next year, in the next decade, in the next century .....
And while those with short memories can recall the Grand Coalition of 2006-2009 (CDU/CSU and SDP), that looks for the moment unlikely as both Steinbrück and the party leader, Sigmar Gabriel (from the opposite populist wing of the party to Steinbrück) have both ruled it out. Stress though "for the moment". There is also the fact to remember that with the 2006-2009 government, the two parties finished almost neck and neck, so there was a fairly equal division of representation. That will not be the case this time as there is summat like 15% difference in the vote and the SDP would be the junior partner. Stress again "for the moment".
As for die Grünen, if they had polled their likely number of votes (in the 12-13% category), then maybe they would agree. As it is they would get very little that they wanted, and would find themselves a bit like the Liberal Democrats in the UK at the moment - forced to support a government whose philosophy they do not like and lose support among their base. Yes, of course they could refuse to agree once in a while when it mattered, which would probably force a general election where they could get hammered even worse than this time.
So ....
Here we are in limbo.
A minority government is not likely. Another election? The CDU/CSU would like the idea, and maybe the FDP might get 5% this time - so somebody is going to have give way.
Expect to hear "for the good of the country" uttered a few times in German, and a bit of humble pie being eaten, somewhere along the line. Some times one slice of bread is better than none at all, even if you would like the full loaf.
The one other alternative, some of you might have worked out, would be a coalition between the SDP, die Grünen and die Linke. Well as much as 8.6% of the voters may like the idea of die Linke in power, hardly anyone else in the country does, and there may be a few rewards for even considering the idea next time round as well - and not rewards of a positive nature.
So on with the political horse-trading. This might take some time, so don't hold your breath. The world will not fall apart in the mean time. Even when the world's powerful economies hold an indecisive election, the world continues to turn. And some of us have become cynical enough to believe that the world will not improve no matter what happens. Things could get worse? They probably will, it is only how quickly that is the question that is currently in play!
So that being said, Sunday night was a good night to be a German conservative. Almost a great night. In the vote for the Chancellorship, Angela Merkel pounded her SDP opponent, Peer Steinbrück. Given that Steinbrück comes from his party's "business" wing and that he was close to the banks and the bankers, it should not have been that surprising. If you want a conservative why not pick one who claims to be one in the first place? Merkel would make at least as much sense.
Monday morning the newspapers were even talking of a triumphant night for Merkel.
Well it almost was.
Except for one rather unfortunate detail.
Back to Germany's amazing proportional representation voting system. And back to its rule (designed to keep the extremists out) that a party must win 5% of the vote to be elected to the German Parliament - the Bundestag.
Merkel's CDU, along with its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, won 41.2% of the vote. Between them they won 5 seats short of the number needed to win an absolute majority. That has not been done, I believe, since the days of Adenauer.
Last time round, this might not have been a serious issue. Their usual government partner - the notably more conservative still FDP - won 15% of the vote in 2009. The problem being since that they were not capable of persuading the CDU/CSU to agree to the tax cuts that they promised their voters, and spent most of the four years looking like a party that was totally at odds with itself. Down from 15% to 4.7% in four years. Less than 5% of the vote, say goodbye to the Bundestag.
The new conservative party, the AfD, which was pushing an agenda for getting Germany out of the Euro also got that percentage. A one-issue bucket party - do not expect them to go much further.
Along with the Pirate party (only 2.2% of the vote - their rise in the regional parliaments in the past couple of years failed to go anywhere in the national elections, which given the emptiness of their agenda should not be a surprise), they also failed to qualify for the Bundestag.
In fact only four parties did. Apart from the CDU/CSU, the SDP (Social Democrats), the German Green Party (die Grünen - whose vote also collapsed from where they were when in the regional elections even quite recently to 8.4%, when 16-17 looked possible only a few weeks ago), and die Linke (the offshoot of the former East German Communist Party with a few renegades who left the SDP as it was no longer radical enough).
To rule, the CDU/CSU will have to form an alliance with one of these three. Natural allies they are not, any of them. The thought of the CDU/CSU and die Linke forming an alliance is hysterically funny. Even if they were the two parties to gain votes at this election (the public will usw). Won't happen .... This year, next year, in the next decade, in the next century .....
And while those with short memories can recall the Grand Coalition of 2006-2009 (CDU/CSU and SDP), that looks for the moment unlikely as both Steinbrück and the party leader, Sigmar Gabriel (from the opposite populist wing of the party to Steinbrück) have both ruled it out. Stress though "for the moment". There is also the fact to remember that with the 2006-2009 government, the two parties finished almost neck and neck, so there was a fairly equal division of representation. That will not be the case this time as there is summat like 15% difference in the vote and the SDP would be the junior partner. Stress again "for the moment".
As for die Grünen, if they had polled their likely number of votes (in the 12-13% category), then maybe they would agree. As it is they would get very little that they wanted, and would find themselves a bit like the Liberal Democrats in the UK at the moment - forced to support a government whose philosophy they do not like and lose support among their base. Yes, of course they could refuse to agree once in a while when it mattered, which would probably force a general election where they could get hammered even worse than this time.
So ....
Here we are in limbo.
A minority government is not likely. Another election? The CDU/CSU would like the idea, and maybe the FDP might get 5% this time - so somebody is going to have give way.
Expect to hear "for the good of the country" uttered a few times in German, and a bit of humble pie being eaten, somewhere along the line. Some times one slice of bread is better than none at all, even if you would like the full loaf.
The one other alternative, some of you might have worked out, would be a coalition between the SDP, die Grünen and die Linke. Well as much as 8.6% of the voters may like the idea of die Linke in power, hardly anyone else in the country does, and there may be a few rewards for even considering the idea next time round as well - and not rewards of a positive nature.
So on with the political horse-trading. This might take some time, so don't hold your breath. The world will not fall apart in the mean time. Even when the world's powerful economies hold an indecisive election, the world continues to turn. And some of us have become cynical enough to believe that the world will not improve no matter what happens. Things could get worse? They probably will, it is only how quickly that is the question that is currently in play!
Postscript (January 2nd, 2022). I think that referring to the AfD now as a conservative party would be polite, to say the least. Ultranationalist and everything that involves is where they lie these days, as well as being Covid (and vaccination) deniers😲, which sums them up!
Sunday, 22 September 2013
German elections 2013 - the day of the event
See my previous pieces
"Well I can now actually vote - but for whom?" dated March 18th, 2011
and
"Wahl-O-Mat - or who should you vote for in the German elections?" dated September 1st, 2013
and then proceed with this.
So today it is election day here. I keep getting emails telling me to vote. I keep getting stuff in my mailbox from the various parties advising me to vote for them.
Problem being, as a foreign national I cannot vote. I can in the European Parliament elections, I can in the vote for the mayor of Frankfurt, but I cannot vote in German national elections (as I am not a German national) and I cannot vote in the Hessen state elections (held on the same day) as that has national implications (i.e. who will end up in the upper house of the German Parliament). So anyway.
I delineated in the first of the two above posts (the one dated 2011) how the German election system works approximately (at that point on a regional basis, but the national model is not that different) and whom you could vote for.
In the second of these posts I pointed out how they can get your opinions in line with what the parties are supposedly proposing (allowing for the fact that it is not always easy to reduce party positions to simple yes / no / neutral choices. As in my question: how do you get unemployment down?).
Anyway out of the 29 parties standing in the election this time round, for Wahl-O-Mat (see above), I chose 8.
Those being:
1. CDU/CSU - mainstream conservative, for American readers, think of the GOP pre-Reagan
2. FDP - Known here as the "liberals", but that is "traditional liberalism" (more "libertarian" US style, though also pro-EU, maybe surprisingly)
3. SDP - modern European Social Democrats (no nationalisation any more, and "business friendly" - see Blair's Labour Party in the UK for economic policy, almost)
4. Die Grünen (German German Party) - standard European Green party (actually probably the most important Green party in Europe) - suspicious of big business, strongly pro-small business (particularly selling environmentally-friendly products)
5. Die Linke (literally "the Left") - the former East German Communist Party (modified, they do not want the Stasi and the barbed wire fences and the gun turrets back (?)), allied with the renegades in the West who left the SDP. Red-blooded Socialism.
6. Die Piraten (the Pirates) - pro-computer privacy, anti-state involvement. Assange-ists maybe?
7. NPD (abbreviations translate to National Party of Germany) - neo-Fascist
8. Die Rentner Partei (the pensioners/senior citizens' party) - self-explanatory.
For more detail see the first of the pieces above - the one dated March 18th, 2011.
What Wahl-O-Mat gave me:
1. Piraten 64.7%
2. Grünen 62.7%
3. Rentner 60.8%
4. NPD 59.8%
5= CDU/CSU 58.8%
5= Linke 58.8%
7. SPD 53.9%
8. FDP 40.2%
Shocked? I was. It possibly says more about Wahl-O-Mat than it says about my opinions. In fact you should replace the word "possibly" with "probably". See fascinatingly the tie between the diametrically opposed CDU/CSU and die Linke!
About the only non-shocking element of that result is that I would have so little faith in the FDP (their policies strike me as being heavily biased in favour of the mega-rich and everybody else can go swim in the sea of proverbial sharks. No thank you).
For the rest, that the NPD would finish as high as fourth? There is no way in 2 million of the proverbial month of Sundays that I would ever support them. They are the most pronounced anti-EU anti-Euro party in Germany (a more "respectable" version of this has since turned up, but it should not be taken that seriously), they dislike most foreigners and hate the rest .... NO WAY! (see also the postscript).
As for the Pirates finishing first?
Check the individual questions on Wahl-O-Mat. Check against the results of the individual questions. You find this rider "the party has no stated position upon this issue". I did that several times with the Pirates. They do not seem to be penalised in the voting.
Go back to the famous slogan from the Clinton elections in the US - "It's the economy, stupid".
IT IS THE ECONOMY, STUPID!!!!
About the only things that the Pirates have to say on the economy is that "everyone should have a good job". Of course they should! You get that from loads of different parties. Take the PSG (a more intellectual, less gutter-snipe version of die Linke who are extraordinarily good at producing slogans about good jobs for all and an end to unemployment) - laudable, but how do you get there? Enter the words "Piraten" and the German word for economy, "Wirtschaft" on google.de. Try finding any current policy initiatives? They still seem to be stuck on the "we are still working that out" excuse from 2-3 years back. NOT WORTH 5 MINUTES OF MY TIME!
I do not want foreign spy agencies or the German government hacking my emails? Of course not, but the economy is far more important than that. Government spying on the poor? Shouldn't boosting the economy to raise the standard of living come first????
And as for the Pirates' take on unemployment. Look at some items on google.de after replacing the word "Wirtschaft" with "Arbeitslosigkeit" (unemployment). Some comments from the Pirates are positively scathing - about the unemployed, not the unemployment!
They are nothing but a one-issue protest bucket party, strong on image and weak on substance.
Unemployment is an issue. Germany has "low unemployment" we are told. Something like 5.5 %, which equals 2.5 to 3 million unemployed. The CDU/CSU-FDP coalition are proud of this.
2.5 million unemployed? That number is a disgrace. It is far, far too high, and getting it down by at least 2 million (to the numbers from the Adenauer-Erhard days) should be the number one priority!
And that ignores underemployment. Which is massive.
I saw one seditious item on Facebook (which I have again left for security reasons) indicating that the real figure for unemployment here was 7 million. Which would not surprise me. At all!
The situation really requires a return to the production-growth bias of the Adenauer-Erhard CDU/CSU (on a European scale, with EU initiatives) with the Schumacher-Brandt led SDP prodding them, not the banking-biased nonsense of the Kohl-Merkel CDU/CSU with the Steinbrück led SDP and its banking allies merely carping about method and not substance. Dynamising the economy, not letting it stagnate. And getting the European partners on board. One place they could start would be getting the Chinese to be forced to float their currency so that it rises (and rises and rises) to its true rate. If they want to benefit from the global market economy, they should play the game according to the same rules as everyone else!
And this would help stop the precipitous decline in European manufacturing and encourage us to produce more on the continent - which should create jobs!
A repeat result of the last election? Do not expect anything to improve much, even slowly. When you sweep the dust under the carpet, the dust is still there.
My two favourite politicians in Germany (Claudia Roth of die Grünen and Sigmar Gabriel of the SDP - who actually seems to be interested in how the economy impacts people, not simply how well (?) the economy is working, a sadly isolated example) will probably hardly feature in this election.
The result at the moment seems close to a dead-heat or a slight majority for more of the same. If we ended up with a Frankfurt coalition (Frankfurt City has recently had a CDU - Grünen coalition), it might be more interesting. At least the mixture of "management" and "initiatives" sounds interesting on paper. The SDP under Schröder watched its reputation decline, at least where domestic policy is concerned, and in-fighting seems to have replaced policy initiatives. Their absence from the government would not be that frightening.
But in an indecisive election, the possibility of a grand coalition (CDU/CSU-SDP) would be possible. It didn't work too badly the last time (2006-2009 including the global crisis of 2008), and the SDP are more pro-growth than the CDU (let's face it, isn't "growth" a better idea than "austerity"????), but given the personalities involved, it doesn't bear thinking about.
Anyway more in a couple of days time when we know the outcome. I must remember to go out tomorrow and buy a hairshirt.
Postscript.
One of the questions on Wahl-O-Mat involved getting rid of the Euro. The NPD's position was as might be expected (if essentially BS). And also sounded like a word-for-word translation of the sort of comment that Nigel Farage of the EXP/UKIP has on the subject. Interesting allies that they have in Europe .....
"Well I can now actually vote - but for whom?" dated March 18th, 2011
and
"Wahl-O-Mat - or who should you vote for in the German elections?" dated September 1st, 2013
and then proceed with this.
So today it is election day here. I keep getting emails telling me to vote. I keep getting stuff in my mailbox from the various parties advising me to vote for them.
Problem being, as a foreign national I cannot vote. I can in the European Parliament elections, I can in the vote for the mayor of Frankfurt, but I cannot vote in German national elections (as I am not a German national) and I cannot vote in the Hessen state elections (held on the same day) as that has national implications (i.e. who will end up in the upper house of the German Parliament). So anyway.
I delineated in the first of the two above posts (the one dated 2011) how the German election system works approximately (at that point on a regional basis, but the national model is not that different) and whom you could vote for.
In the second of these posts I pointed out how they can get your opinions in line with what the parties are supposedly proposing (allowing for the fact that it is not always easy to reduce party positions to simple yes / no / neutral choices. As in my question: how do you get unemployment down?).
Anyway out of the 29 parties standing in the election this time round, for Wahl-O-Mat (see above), I chose 8.
Those being:
1. CDU/CSU - mainstream conservative, for American readers, think of the GOP pre-Reagan
2. FDP - Known here as the "liberals", but that is "traditional liberalism" (more "libertarian" US style, though also pro-EU, maybe surprisingly)
3. SDP - modern European Social Democrats (no nationalisation any more, and "business friendly" - see Blair's Labour Party in the UK for economic policy, almost)
4. Die Grünen (German German Party) - standard European Green party (actually probably the most important Green party in Europe) - suspicious of big business, strongly pro-small business (particularly selling environmentally-friendly products)
5. Die Linke (literally "the Left") - the former East German Communist Party (modified, they do not want the Stasi and the barbed wire fences and the gun turrets back (?)), allied with the renegades in the West who left the SDP. Red-blooded Socialism.
6. Die Piraten (the Pirates) - pro-computer privacy, anti-state involvement. Assange-ists maybe?
7. NPD (abbreviations translate to National Party of Germany) - neo-Fascist
8. Die Rentner Partei (the pensioners/senior citizens' party) - self-explanatory.
For more detail see the first of the pieces above - the one dated March 18th, 2011.
What Wahl-O-Mat gave me:
1. Piraten 64.7%
2. Grünen 62.7%
3. Rentner 60.8%
4. NPD 59.8%
5= CDU/CSU 58.8%
5= Linke 58.8%
7. SPD 53.9%
8. FDP 40.2%
Shocked? I was. It possibly says more about Wahl-O-Mat than it says about my opinions. In fact you should replace the word "possibly" with "probably". See fascinatingly the tie between the diametrically opposed CDU/CSU and die Linke!
About the only non-shocking element of that result is that I would have so little faith in the FDP (their policies strike me as being heavily biased in favour of the mega-rich and everybody else can go swim in the sea of proverbial sharks. No thank you).
For the rest, that the NPD would finish as high as fourth? There is no way in 2 million of the proverbial month of Sundays that I would ever support them. They are the most pronounced anti-EU anti-Euro party in Germany (a more "respectable" version of this has since turned up, but it should not be taken that seriously), they dislike most foreigners and hate the rest .... NO WAY! (see also the postscript).
As for the Pirates finishing first?
Check the individual questions on Wahl-O-Mat. Check against the results of the individual questions. You find this rider "the party has no stated position upon this issue". I did that several times with the Pirates. They do not seem to be penalised in the voting.
Go back to the famous slogan from the Clinton elections in the US - "It's the economy, stupid".
IT IS THE ECONOMY, STUPID!!!!
About the only things that the Pirates have to say on the economy is that "everyone should have a good job". Of course they should! You get that from loads of different parties. Take the PSG (a more intellectual, less gutter-snipe version of die Linke who are extraordinarily good at producing slogans about good jobs for all and an end to unemployment) - laudable, but how do you get there? Enter the words "Piraten" and the German word for economy, "Wirtschaft" on google.de. Try finding any current policy initiatives? They still seem to be stuck on the "we are still working that out" excuse from 2-3 years back. NOT WORTH 5 MINUTES OF MY TIME!
I do not want foreign spy agencies or the German government hacking my emails? Of course not, but the economy is far more important than that. Government spying on the poor? Shouldn't boosting the economy to raise the standard of living come first????
And as for the Pirates' take on unemployment. Look at some items on google.de after replacing the word "Wirtschaft" with "Arbeitslosigkeit" (unemployment). Some comments from the Pirates are positively scathing - about the unemployed, not the unemployment!
They are nothing but a one-issue protest bucket party, strong on image and weak on substance.
Unemployment is an issue. Germany has "low unemployment" we are told. Something like 5.5 %, which equals 2.5 to 3 million unemployed. The CDU/CSU-FDP coalition are proud of this.
2.5 million unemployed? That number is a disgrace. It is far, far too high, and getting it down by at least 2 million (to the numbers from the Adenauer-Erhard days) should be the number one priority!
And that ignores underemployment. Which is massive.
I saw one seditious item on Facebook (which I have again left for security reasons) indicating that the real figure for unemployment here was 7 million. Which would not surprise me. At all!
The situation really requires a return to the production-growth bias of the Adenauer-Erhard CDU/CSU (on a European scale, with EU initiatives) with the Schumacher-Brandt led SDP prodding them, not the banking-biased nonsense of the Kohl-Merkel CDU/CSU with the Steinbrück led SDP and its banking allies merely carping about method and not substance. Dynamising the economy, not letting it stagnate. And getting the European partners on board. One place they could start would be getting the Chinese to be forced to float their currency so that it rises (and rises and rises) to its true rate. If they want to benefit from the global market economy, they should play the game according to the same rules as everyone else!
And this would help stop the precipitous decline in European manufacturing and encourage us to produce more on the continent - which should create jobs!
A repeat result of the last election? Do not expect anything to improve much, even slowly. When you sweep the dust under the carpet, the dust is still there.
My two favourite politicians in Germany (Claudia Roth of die Grünen and Sigmar Gabriel of the SDP - who actually seems to be interested in how the economy impacts people, not simply how well (?) the economy is working, a sadly isolated example) will probably hardly feature in this election.
The result at the moment seems close to a dead-heat or a slight majority for more of the same. If we ended up with a Frankfurt coalition (Frankfurt City has recently had a CDU - Grünen coalition), it might be more interesting. At least the mixture of "management" and "initiatives" sounds interesting on paper. The SDP under Schröder watched its reputation decline, at least where domestic policy is concerned, and in-fighting seems to have replaced policy initiatives. Their absence from the government would not be that frightening.
But in an indecisive election, the possibility of a grand coalition (CDU/CSU-SDP) would be possible. It didn't work too badly the last time (2006-2009 including the global crisis of 2008), and the SDP are more pro-growth than the CDU (let's face it, isn't "growth" a better idea than "austerity"????), but given the personalities involved, it doesn't bear thinking about.
Anyway more in a couple of days time when we know the outcome. I must remember to go out tomorrow and buy a hairshirt.
Postscript.
One of the questions on Wahl-O-Mat involved getting rid of the Euro. The NPD's position was as might be expected (if essentially BS). And also sounded like a word-for-word translation of the sort of comment that Nigel Farage of the EXP/UKIP has on the subject. Interesting allies that they have in Europe .....
Postscript for the 2021 election (January 2nd, 2022). After becoming a naturalised German citizen in 2019 I actually got the chance to vote in the 2021 election. Checking Wahl-o-Mat again the results were much more accurate. Die Grünen first with 67%, some margin ahead of the rest, and the Piraten party nowhere. Come the election itself I split my vote - different parties for the constituency vote as against the party vote. On tactical grounds. And no! The AfD did not get one second's worth of consideration from me.
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Greed - a definition for two different generations
A greedy child - someone whose parents tell him/her that he/she is acting inappropriately and he/she must learn to do with less.
A greedy adult - someone who is told that his/her actions are essential to the way that economies are run, and if anything he/she must learn to become even greedier if the economy is to benefit.
A greedy adult - someone who is told that his/her actions are essential to the way that economies are run, and if anything he/she must learn to become even greedier if the economy is to benefit.
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Time for the UK to take back the American colonies?
Just a thought.
I was checking through the news items on yahoo.com (US, not UK or Germany. You get a lot of stories on baseball which is becoming my overriding interest at the moment - which it will remain as long as the Red Sox are doing well!) the other day.
There were no fewer than five stories on British royalty. This is news aimed at the American public. The American colonies chose in 1776 to rid themselves of the British monarchy. It was a proverbial yoke, it wasn't needed.
So why all this nonsense about British royalty on an American news feed? It couldn't be that the USA wants the monarchy back? Take one step further, maybe baby wants to come home to mama after 237 years? Maybe it wasn't too clever leaving in the first place ....
OK, satire aside, why Americans are following all this "made in the UK" nonsense about British royalty totally baffles me. For one thing they are better off without it! And if you bother checking, the UK taxpayer is responsible for paying a substantial chunk in tax to maintain all the royal household (which is not, like most of us have (if we are lucky), a couple of rooms plus kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and toilet - it is slightly more than that).
As I recall it was the dislike of the British establishment demanding tax from the colonies that set off the demand for independence in the first place. Of course they could work out a deal where the "American colonies" don't have to sign up again to be part of the UK, but will gladly pay tax for the upkeep of the British royal family. I am sure that British taxpayers will like this idea and it will give a new meaning to the "special relationship"! And we all know how much Americans, particularly conservative Americans, love paying tax, don't we?
Meanwhile as a British passport holder living in the Federal REPUBLIC of Germany and a person committed to fully elected democratic republics with no leadership (constitutional or otherwise) gained through inheritance, I would like to say that we have none of that nonsense here.
I would like to say it, but I would be lying. Last time I checked yahoo.de there seemed to be a proliferation of stories on there about "die Queen" (not "die Königin" - please note that "die" here means "the", it is nowt to do with dying). One of the German TV channels even has a royal correspondent now (they also look at stories at monarchies in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Belgium usw - it is not exclusively the UK which is of "interest").
I would also have expected the Germans to know better - the last monarch they had here (actually an Emperor), Kaiser Wilhelm II left with his proverbial tail between his legs in 1918 and fled to Holland following the defeat of the German Empire in the First World War. I haven't heard any demand for the German royal family to resume power (even in a constitutional role). Nor do I hope that they will.
There is actually still a claimant to the German throne - Prinz Georg Friedrich of Prussia. He lives in Bremen (not Berlin) and according to Wikipedia, the source of all relevant information (satire), he "currently works for a company specialising in helping universities bring their innovations to market". Which sounds a more useful job than those carried out by most of his counterparts in other countries who still hold official positions and get paid accordingly to sit round sumptuous palaces thanks to the generosity of the taxpayer .....
I was checking through the news items on yahoo.com (US, not UK or Germany. You get a lot of stories on baseball which is becoming my overriding interest at the moment - which it will remain as long as the Red Sox are doing well!) the other day.
There were no fewer than five stories on British royalty. This is news aimed at the American public. The American colonies chose in 1776 to rid themselves of the British monarchy. It was a proverbial yoke, it wasn't needed.
So why all this nonsense about British royalty on an American news feed? It couldn't be that the USA wants the monarchy back? Take one step further, maybe baby wants to come home to mama after 237 years? Maybe it wasn't too clever leaving in the first place ....
OK, satire aside, why Americans are following all this "made in the UK" nonsense about British royalty totally baffles me. For one thing they are better off without it! And if you bother checking, the UK taxpayer is responsible for paying a substantial chunk in tax to maintain all the royal household (which is not, like most of us have (if we are lucky), a couple of rooms plus kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and toilet - it is slightly more than that).
As I recall it was the dislike of the British establishment demanding tax from the colonies that set off the demand for independence in the first place. Of course they could work out a deal where the "American colonies" don't have to sign up again to be part of the UK, but will gladly pay tax for the upkeep of the British royal family. I am sure that British taxpayers will like this idea and it will give a new meaning to the "special relationship"! And we all know how much Americans, particularly conservative Americans, love paying tax, don't we?
Meanwhile as a British passport holder living in the Federal REPUBLIC of Germany and a person committed to fully elected democratic republics with no leadership (constitutional or otherwise) gained through inheritance, I would like to say that we have none of that nonsense here.
I would like to say it, but I would be lying. Last time I checked yahoo.de there seemed to be a proliferation of stories on there about "die Queen" (not "die Königin" - please note that "die" here means "the", it is nowt to do with dying). One of the German TV channels even has a royal correspondent now (they also look at stories at monarchies in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Belgium usw - it is not exclusively the UK which is of "interest").
I would also have expected the Germans to know better - the last monarch they had here (actually an Emperor), Kaiser Wilhelm II left with his proverbial tail between his legs in 1918 and fled to Holland following the defeat of the German Empire in the First World War. I haven't heard any demand for the German royal family to resume power (even in a constitutional role). Nor do I hope that they will.
There is actually still a claimant to the German throne - Prinz Georg Friedrich of Prussia. He lives in Bremen (not Berlin) and according to Wikipedia, the source of all relevant information (satire), he "currently works for a company specialising in helping universities bring their innovations to market". Which sounds a more useful job than those carried out by most of his counterparts in other countries who still hold official positions and get paid accordingly to sit round sumptuous palaces thanks to the generosity of the taxpayer .....
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Believing the rubbish that people send you
This morning there was this weird item in my Spam queue in my email box.
Yes, I know that Spam is commonplace and occasionally weird, but anyway.
Apparently if I purchase this item I can "turn all women on" and "they will not be able to resist".
Really?
ALL women? ALL women????
The term "women" implies adult so that essentially covers anyone from 18 to 116.
Do I really want to turn on someone who is old enough to be MY grandmother as well as those young enough to be my granddaughter? OK forget for a moment that I never had children.
Can I expect, seriously, that if I use this product that a load of 20-year-old women are going to be trying to break down the door as "they cannot resist me"?????
At my age?
Seriously?????
And would I really want that and be able to handle all that was involved? Very likely not!
Move on.
The point of this advertising though I suppose is that it reached the wrong target. It is probably aimed at men who are younger, frustrated individuals in their 20s and 30s and who are looking for answers to their frustration. A fairly large market, I would imagine.
And an easy way of making money. Buy it, try it, any money-back guarantee if/when it fails? (Oh yes, my friends, it will fail!).
I doubt it.
Suitable rubbish for attracting the gullible and that is about the story, basically.
Meanwhile it would be interesting to hear any reliable stories of where this product has succeeded - including from the females (of wharrever age, particular those past 100) who have been successfully seduced by it ....
Yes, I know that Spam is commonplace and occasionally weird, but anyway.
Apparently if I purchase this item I can "turn all women on" and "they will not be able to resist".
Really?
ALL women? ALL women????
The term "women" implies adult so that essentially covers anyone from 18 to 116.
Do I really want to turn on someone who is old enough to be MY grandmother as well as those young enough to be my granddaughter? OK forget for a moment that I never had children.
Can I expect, seriously, that if I use this product that a load of 20-year-old women are going to be trying to break down the door as "they cannot resist me"?????
At my age?
Seriously?????
And would I really want that and be able to handle all that was involved? Very likely not!
Move on.
The point of this advertising though I suppose is that it reached the wrong target. It is probably aimed at men who are younger, frustrated individuals in their 20s and 30s and who are looking for answers to their frustration. A fairly large market, I would imagine.
And an easy way of making money. Buy it, try it, any money-back guarantee if/when it fails? (Oh yes, my friends, it will fail!).
I doubt it.
Suitable rubbish for attracting the gullible and that is about the story, basically.
Meanwhile it would be interesting to hear any reliable stories of where this product has succeeded - including from the females (of wharrever age, particular those past 100) who have been successfully seduced by it ....
Monday, 9 September 2013
Higher educational funding - my take based upon personal experience
This is (paragraphs and emphasis through the use of block characters apart) a direct copy of a comment which I wrote tonight on LinkedIn.com.
When I went to university in the UK at the age of 19 it was then still possible to get a grant from the government. It was not that much and your parents were expected to pay a percentage based upon their earnings, but you learned a lesson early in life about good "household management".
There were no luxuries, you lived within your means and if you overspent, your parents had better be feeling generous (which was not always the case). I always had enough money left in the final week of term, but not much. In that respect I was unusual, most of my friends were usually in borrowing mode.
The advantage of this system was though that people from poorish backgrounds like myself had the chance to get a high-quality education which could benefit the society as a whole later on. Get a job during term? Not enough time (working on projects in the Uni library till late most days). Get a job in the summer vac - if there were any, demand exceeded supply by some way.
As for the current system of taking out loans - I would never have done it, as I would have refused to put myself into debt. At least without a guarantee of a very good job to follow (do such guarantees exist? No!).
We live though in an era where borrowing money has become almost a fetish, and the fact that the interest on loans is ridiculously high (think what you could do with the money if you did not waste it as interest charges!) does not seem to be the deterrent it should be.
Would I personally have missed out if I had not gone to university? Definitely. And I think that I have been good value for money since. But I am absolutely certain that I simply would have gone into the workplace as an employee at the age of 19 and never have studied full-time.
When I went to university in the UK at the age of 19 it was then still possible to get a grant from the government. It was not that much and your parents were expected to pay a percentage based upon their earnings, but you learned a lesson early in life about good "household management".
There were no luxuries, you lived within your means and if you overspent, your parents had better be feeling generous (which was not always the case). I always had enough money left in the final week of term, but not much. In that respect I was unusual, most of my friends were usually in borrowing mode.
The advantage of this system was though that people from poorish backgrounds like myself had the chance to get a high-quality education which could benefit the society as a whole later on. Get a job during term? Not enough time (working on projects in the Uni library till late most days). Get a job in the summer vac - if there were any, demand exceeded supply by some way.
As for the current system of taking out loans - I would never have done it, as I would have refused to put myself into debt. At least without a guarantee of a very good job to follow (do such guarantees exist? No!).
We live though in an era where borrowing money has become almost a fetish, and the fact that the interest on loans is ridiculously high (think what you could do with the money if you did not waste it as interest charges!) does not seem to be the deterrent it should be.
Would I personally have missed out if I had not gone to university? Definitely. And I think that I have been good value for money since. But I am absolutely certain that I simply would have gone into the workplace as an employee at the age of 19 and never have studied full-time.
Sunday, 1 September 2013
Wahl-O-Mat - or who should you vote for in the German elections?
OK, later this month we will have the German national elections. In Frankfurt and surrounds we also have the Hessen state elections which means the results of the state elections will probably reflect those of the national elections, which sounds none too clever, but anyway .....
OK, this isn't the UK or the US and consequently based upon the first past the post system and consequently you are usually stuck with a choice of either the uninspiring or the downright awful ("awful", not "awesome" NB). Yes, there are other options, but they can never win or have any say in what is happening, so .......
This is Germany, where they have an interesting form of proportional representation. So every vote counts and provided the party that you choose gets at least 5% of the vote, they will be represented in the parliamentary body involved (national or state as the case may be).
The end product is invariably a coalition of some sort, as hardly ever do you get a majority party winning over 50% of the vote. Consider instead the UK where the majority party often gets a landslide with scarcely 40% of the vote, for example.
There are coalitions and coalitions, some work out OK, some don't. It usually prevents absolute extremes winning, and is supposedly representative. The national elections this time, I should add, are for the Lower House (like the House of Representatives in the US), who hold most of the power here. The state elections are important though as not merely do they decide who runs some things locally (like when your kids have school holidays inter alia), but they have a proportional representation in the Upper House of the German Parliament (a bit like the Senate in the US, though less powerful, but a sight more significant than the anachronistic House of Lords in the UK!), where they can veto what comes through the Lower House.
With me so far?
Good.
You are now a German citizen (good!), you have the chance to vote (good!), and you haven't a clue about whom to vote for (where have you been for the last few years, and if you have not been bothered before, why are you now?). OK. To help you decide, an organisation called the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (The German Federal Agency for Civic Education) has come up with an excellent Internet tool call the Wahl-O-Mat. This isn't totally new - I tried it out before the 2009 elections.
What it does.
There are 38 questions. You are asked to choose between "yes", "no" and "neutral".
When you have answered all 38 questions, it then asks you to weight the questions that you regard to be the most important. When you have done that you are asked to choose the political parties and check your combined selection of answers against theirs.
There are ..... 29 parties. Repeat that - there are TWENTY-NINE parties standing in this election. 28 have made their positions known to Wahl-O-Mat - so one of your selections may be unfortunate.
You are given the list of 29 party names and asked to choose 8 to match against your selections. It then becomes very typically scientifically German, whizzes through all the data, and presents you with a list of results. In batting order.
You can then check your positions against each of the 8 parties you have selected to get an idea where they stand. If you want to try it against all 29, then note your answers the first time you go through, and repeat the exercise 4 times, picking different parties at the end.
Most of the 29 are not that significant, but in a true democracy deserve to be heard. So - you can just pick the major parties (as I did) and one or two to make up the numbers and do it once, but if you think someone else might have the answers .....
It is an interesting exercise. For those interested try:
http://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2013/main_app.php
It's all in German, did I hear from you? Of course it is - these are the German national elections! You may not be able to find a radio station these days that plays mainly music performed in German, but the language has still survived (for now at least) in the political sphere!
A couple of negatives.
1. I have the problem in thinking that there are issues you cannot answer with a straight (yes/no/neutral) answer. Ask a question like "what do you intend to do to bring unemployment down?", for example. A very important issue, and obviously a straight one word answer is not possible.
2. Infuriatingly, some of the parties that have bothered to give their positions to Wahl-O-Mat do not seem to have positions on some very important issues. This does not seem to affect their score as negatively as it ought to!
So you still need to think about some issues that are not dealt with here. It is a good taster, a good starting-point, but you have to go beyond that. Wahl-O-Mat does actually finish by asking you a number of questions as to whether your interest in politics has risen as a result, whether it has affected your voting plans etc. And whether you will look into things further.
I found it interesting though. As for my personal take, there will follow an article called "Wahl-O-Mat - or who should I vote for in the German elections?" (not that I can) in the next couple of days.
OK, this isn't the UK or the US and consequently based upon the first past the post system and consequently you are usually stuck with a choice of either the uninspiring or the downright awful ("awful", not "awesome" NB). Yes, there are other options, but they can never win or have any say in what is happening, so .......
This is Germany, where they have an interesting form of proportional representation. So every vote counts and provided the party that you choose gets at least 5% of the vote, they will be represented in the parliamentary body involved (national or state as the case may be).
The end product is invariably a coalition of some sort, as hardly ever do you get a majority party winning over 50% of the vote. Consider instead the UK where the majority party often gets a landslide with scarcely 40% of the vote, for example.
There are coalitions and coalitions, some work out OK, some don't. It usually prevents absolute extremes winning, and is supposedly representative. The national elections this time, I should add, are for the Lower House (like the House of Representatives in the US), who hold most of the power here. The state elections are important though as not merely do they decide who runs some things locally (like when your kids have school holidays inter alia), but they have a proportional representation in the Upper House of the German Parliament (a bit like the Senate in the US, though less powerful, but a sight more significant than the anachronistic House of Lords in the UK!), where they can veto what comes through the Lower House.
With me so far?
Good.
You are now a German citizen (good!), you have the chance to vote (good!), and you haven't a clue about whom to vote for (where have you been for the last few years, and if you have not been bothered before, why are you now?). OK. To help you decide, an organisation called the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (The German Federal Agency for Civic Education) has come up with an excellent Internet tool call the Wahl-O-Mat. This isn't totally new - I tried it out before the 2009 elections.
What it does.
There are 38 questions. You are asked to choose between "yes", "no" and "neutral".
When you have answered all 38 questions, it then asks you to weight the questions that you regard to be the most important. When you have done that you are asked to choose the political parties and check your combined selection of answers against theirs.
There are ..... 29 parties. Repeat that - there are TWENTY-NINE parties standing in this election. 28 have made their positions known to Wahl-O-Mat - so one of your selections may be unfortunate.
You are given the list of 29 party names and asked to choose 8 to match against your selections. It then becomes very typically scientifically German, whizzes through all the data, and presents you with a list of results. In batting order.
You can then check your positions against each of the 8 parties you have selected to get an idea where they stand. If you want to try it against all 29, then note your answers the first time you go through, and repeat the exercise 4 times, picking different parties at the end.
Most of the 29 are not that significant, but in a true democracy deserve to be heard. So - you can just pick the major parties (as I did) and one or two to make up the numbers and do it once, but if you think someone else might have the answers .....
It is an interesting exercise. For those interested try:
http://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2013/main_app.php
It's all in German, did I hear from you? Of course it is - these are the German national elections! You may not be able to find a radio station these days that plays mainly music performed in German, but the language has still survived (for now at least) in the political sphere!
A couple of negatives.
1. I have the problem in thinking that there are issues you cannot answer with a straight (yes/no/neutral) answer. Ask a question like "what do you intend to do to bring unemployment down?", for example. A very important issue, and obviously a straight one word answer is not possible.
2. Infuriatingly, some of the parties that have bothered to give their positions to Wahl-O-Mat do not seem to have positions on some very important issues. This does not seem to affect their score as negatively as it ought to!
So you still need to think about some issues that are not dealt with here. It is a good taster, a good starting-point, but you have to go beyond that. Wahl-O-Mat does actually finish by asking you a number of questions as to whether your interest in politics has risen as a result, whether it has affected your voting plans etc. And whether you will look into things further.
I found it interesting though. As for my personal take, there will follow an article called "Wahl-O-Mat - or who should I vote for in the German elections?" (not that I can) in the next couple of days.
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