Chaos in Germany

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AtomKraft
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#161 Post by AtomKraft » Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:07 pm

Good point, RiS although I never thought Germans were short of brains.

Also, couldn't these clever Gast Arbeiters have done the same work in Turkey, to the great benefit of their countrymen?

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#162 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:29 pm

AtomKraft wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:07 pm
Good point, RiS although I never thought Germans were short of brains.

Also, couldn't these clever Gast Arbeiters have done the same work in Turkey, to the great benefit of their countrymen?
Ich bin kein RiS, ich bin der Grüne Kobold! ;)))

In answer to your question I would say that they have been more successful in a liberal democracy as opposed to an increasingly theistic autocracy like Turkey!
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#163 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:36 pm

TGG, and money and facilities

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#164 Post by ian16th » Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:06 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:01 pm
I could go on... ;)))
You usually do, why not today?

o:-)
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#165 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:16 pm

ian16th wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:06 pm
TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:01 pm
I could go on... ;)))
You usually do, why not today?

o:-)
:)) :p =))
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#166 Post by OFSO » Thu Dec 10, 2020 6:38 pm

When I collected my last car from the factory in Böbblingen Germany, I was told that one in four workers on the factory floor was a quality control inspector. The other three workers were of Turkish nationality.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#167 Post by Rwy in Sight » Thu Dec 10, 2020 7:52 pm

Α.Κ. Frau Merkel opened the doors (while everybody was against it) and there were fewer problems than expected. How much or what Germany gains by allowing them in the country I don't know and we hadn't discuss that back then.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#168 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:08 pm

Monocultures are a barren invitation to webbed feet and moral, physical and intellectual degeneration,. I agree that people should not be forced to integrate by fiat, we must never forget that we are essentially still monkeys, with the same basic instincts that ensured our survival in the savannah, but if we are going to survive as a species, our narrow concepts of troop, tribe and nation will have to be internally revisited and expanded methinks.

Being a green aquatic type of creature I am of course, not disparaging webbed feet mind... ;)))
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#169 Post by AtomKraft » Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:40 am

Immigration is no bad thing in moderation, but Europe is the cultural heart of the World.
If it turns into another Muslim shithole, like all the other shithole countries they inhabit, I count that as loss.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#170 Post by Rwy in Sight » Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:08 am

Europe leads the world in most areas in a positive way (public health, democracy, tolerance etc). We agree that it is very likely if uncontrolled immigrants have their way that quality of Europe would be rapidly lost.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#171 Post by OFSO » Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:09 pm

Strict lockdown from next Wednesday to early January. All shops except essential closed. Children to stay indoors. Five adults/two households permitted for the 25th but not New Year's Eve or Day. Sale of fireworks banned. No invading of Austria.

(Announced during the F-1 race.)

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#172 Post by OFSO » Wed Dec 30, 2020 8:46 pm

The German government is facing awkward questions about why the country that developed the first approved Covid-19 vaccine has so few supplies of the jab, with vaccination rates in Germany lagging far behind the US, UK and Israel.

Jens Spahn, the health minister, pleaded with Germans to have patience. “Throughout the world, supplies of the vaccine are tight,” he told reporters on Wednesday. But he insisted that the situation would ease as more vaccines were approved.

Germans have been angered by statistics showing that more than 640,000 people have already received the Covid-19 jab in Israel, compared with only 78,000 in Germany. Rates of inoculation are also much higher in the UK, which started vaccinations earlier than the EU, and the US. Yet Germany is the home of BioNTech, which developed the Covid-19 vaccine together with Pfizer.


“Sometimes German politicians are so proud of themselves that they forget to learn from the best of the world,” said Marco Buschmann, an MP with the opposition Free Democrats, referring to Israel’s plan to vaccinate most of its population by the end of March.

German officials have complained that they are not receiving as many batches of the vaccine as promised from the central government. Dilek Kalayci, health minister for Berlin, said she had been told that a delivery of 29,250 doses scheduled to arrive in the first week of January had now been cancelled.

“That makes things very difficult for us because we had done all our planning on the basis of these commitments,” she told RBB radio. “I’m angry — the scarcity of the vaccine is a problem for the start of [the] vaccination campaign in Germany.” She said the capital had so far only received a total of 58,500 doses — enough for residents of care homes, but not for other risk groups.

The state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, also announced on Wednesday that it would not be receiving any consignments of vaccine in the first week of January.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#173 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:29 pm

OFSO wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:09 pm
Strict lockdown from next Wednesday to early January. All shops except essential closed. Children to stay indoors. Five adults/two households permitted for the 25th but not New Year's Eve or Day. Sale of fireworks banned. No invading of Austria.

(Announced during the F-1 race.)

I did say across in the Formula One thread that I thought the ‘sport’ wuz boring, but please, not as boring as that?! :-?

Or was it during a safety car circuit?

Gross disrespect for the fans, I’d say! :-o

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#174 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:37 pm

barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:29 pm
OFSO wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:09 pm
Strict lockdown from next Wednesday to early January. All shops except essential closed. Children to stay indoors. Five adults/two households permitted for the 25th but not New Year's Eve or Day. Sale of fireworks banned. No invading of Austria.

(Announced during the F-1 race.)

I did say across in the Formula One thread that I thought the ‘sport’ wuz boring, but please, not as boring as that?! :-?

Or was it during a safety car circuit?

Gross disrespect for the fans, I’d say! :-o
Does all this make you better in some way, as a human?

The Germans have a word for it, it is Schadenfreude, and it is not nice, and it diminishes you as a human!

Was sagst du? (Afrikaans - Wat se jy?)
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#175 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:46 pm

“Does all this make you better in some way, as a human?”

Nah! ‘Twas just an observation at how inconsiderate were the Deutsch broadcasters as their population has a high proportion of petrolheads and interrupting their excitement for such an unwelcome and non-urgent message would have gone down like a lead balloon.

Nothing can make me better in some way, as a human. That aim was abandoned decades ago during my first CRM course. :-h

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#176 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:51 pm

barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:46 pm
“Does all this make you better in some way, as a human?”

Nah! ‘Twas just an observation at how inconsiderate were the Deutsch broadcasters as their population has a high proportion of petrolheads and interrupting their excitement for such an unwelcome and non-urgent message would have gone down like a lead balloon.

Nothing can make me better in some way, as a human. That aim was abandoned decades ago during my first CRM course. :-h
You should have flown in Africa (unless you did of course)? :)
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Re: Chaos in Germany

#177 Post by OFSO » Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:05 pm

Huge problems with vaccine distribution in Germany, but nobody knows why. Outraged German citizens claiming "... Israel and even (sic) the United Kingdom are doing it better than we are... "

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#178 Post by OFSO » Wed Jan 06, 2021 11:37 am

Bild Zeitung took direct aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel in its splash on Monday, accusing her of sacrificing German lives by overriding the vaccine policy of her own government. She handed over the programme to Brussels in order to play the good European as her swansong gesture.

The European Commission then mangled the job. It drifted through the summer. Under pressure from Paris it ordered 300 million doses of the ‘French’ vaccine from GSK-Sanofi in September, only to discover later that Sanofi’s clinical trials had run into trouble. By then the EU vaccine fund was running low.

Several countries balked at Pfizer’s hard-nosed demands - allegedly $50 (£36.80) a dose - for the ‘German’ BioNTech jab. No firm order was issued until mid-November, even though BioNTech had emerged as a front-runner months before. By then the EU had dropped down the pecking order. “Instead of mass delivery, the vaccine is reaching us as a trickle,” said Bild.

"Obviously, the European purchasing process was flawed,” said Markus Söder, the Bavarian premier and the man that Germans would most like to see as the next Chancellor.

“It’s hard to explain why people elsewhere are being vaccinated more quickly with an excellent vaccine developed in Germany. Time is crucial. If Israel, the US, or the UK are far ahead of us with jabs, they’ll also gain economically."

Israel has vaccinated more than a million people with the German jab. So has the UK. The US has surpassed four million. Germany is moving fast by EU standards at 320,000 but is already hitting buffers, partly because some Länder are struggling with the logistics, but also because supplies are running out.


“I don’t see where the does are going to come from,” said Prof Karl Lauterbach, the Social Democrats’ science guru. Supply timetables are an impenetrable secret. Pfizer over-promises. But as far as we know, Germany will not receive more than token deliveries in January, and barely enough to make a decisive impact until late March.

What could change this is rapid approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab by EU regulators. They are taking their sweet time - with the usual pieties about “high EU standards” - and may not act before February.

This is indeed a Katastrophe. One should not pay too much attention to Twitter but I have never before seen such a vehement outpouring of anger and Verzweiflung with EU institutions on German social media.

A view is taking hold that the sooner Germany regains control of its core governing functions, the better. This new mood will collide at some point in 2021 with the economic consequences of the pandemic.

Lack of vaccines imply an extra quarter of lockdowns and eurozone recession. This pushes Club debt ratios further beyond the point of no return. It pushes the French ratio into the danger zone. It pushes more struggling firms over the brink. It raises the risk of permanent scarring.

It implies that German taxpayers will have to dig deeper into their pockets to beef up the European Recovery Fund. The current €390bn grant component, spread over five years and 27 countries, is not going to move the macroeconomic needle.

Katastrophe: Angela Merkel (left) in video conference with regional governors to discuss the extension of Germany's lockdown. The Chancellor is under fierce scrutiny for the decision to hand over responsibility for vaccinations to Brussels.
It implies too that the European Central Bank is going to have to cross red lines established in last May’s menacing ruling by the German constitutional court. Ultimately, it brings forward the day when Germany has to decide whether it is willing to take another big step towards fiscal union and agree to transfers that dwarf reunification costs after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In France we are watching the parallel unravelling of the Europeanist Macron presidency. The leader who began this pandemic with the stirring words “we are at war” - repeated ever since - cannot explain why the French state had failed to vaccinate more that 352 people by the beginning of this week when Italy has done 129,000, Poland 51,000, or Denmark 47,000. The Balkans have done better.

“We are facing a state-scandal,” said Jean Rottner, president of the Grand Est region and himself a critical care doctor. “It is harder to get vaccinated than it is to buy a car.”

Indeed. The elderly must have a medical consultation five days before the jab. There must be a cooling off period after consent in case patients change their minds.

The precautionary principle has been pushed to absurdity, which raises suspicions in France that foot-dragging on the roll-out disguises something else: failure to secure the specialist freezers needed for the BioNTech vaccine. Something similar happened during the mask fiasco. Mr Macron’s government said face masks were useless in the first wave last spring because it had failed to obtain enough of them.

The more forgiving reason is that Mr Macron has been cowed into caution by French anti-vaxxers: 58pc of the population in the latest Odoxa survey, up eight points form a month ago, albeit very soft poll data. If so, he is making matters worse. “It is a gigantic psychological error,” said professor Axel Kahn, a geneticist and head of France’s anti-cancer league.

Prof Kahn said roll-out pedantry beggars belief in a fast-moving emergency. “You have to face reality. I am afraid that within a few weeks we’re going to have a knife to our throats, just like the English,” he said.

Mr Macron has woken up to the political danger. He can hardly do otherwise. He issued a theatrical coup de colère over the weekend, insisting that he was as furious as everybody else over the delays. “We are ambling along at the rhythm of a family walk,”he told Journal du Dimanche.

“This is going to have to change fast and change for real, and it will,” he said. Yet it is he who controls and micro-manages the most centralised state in Europe. It has been his policy all along.

The prevailing view of French elites is that this episode will be forgotten if Mr Macron gets a grip immediately. Perhaps, but this is not a question of media management. Vaccine immobilism and dose shortages until the spring condemn France to protracted a health and economic crisis as far out as April and probably May, by which time the battered British will be long over the hump and enjoying a V-shaped boomlet.

Mr Macron has no clear popular base. His ideology is protean, an uneasy triangulation between Gaullisme, green political correctness that is wearing thin, and reflexive Europeanism for its own sake. His claims to Jupiterian, technocrat authority suppose a minimum of governing competence.

Today he faces no challenger for the Élysée. The French Left is in disarray. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement is full of anti-vaxxers and cannot take full advantage of this debacle. But little remains of his Wunderkind promise. His reform agenda has mostly run into the ground. He has never recovered from the gilet jaunes.

In the end, however, the virus may dispose of Mr Macron just as it disposed of Donald Trump. A credible candidate is likely to emerge on the centre-right who splits the Macronian vote in the first round of the next presidential election, opening the door to a truly radical upset in the French political landscape.

A month is a long time in politics. France has changed. Germany has changed. Europe has changed. “All changed, changed utterly”, to borrow the words of W.B Yeats.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#179 Post by OFSO » Sat Jan 16, 2021 7:13 am

Owing to a misinterpretation of data protection laws, some Landes in Germany are having to guess the ages of possible recipients of the vaccine from their names. You only get an invitation to be vaccinated if you have an old, traditional name, and are thus thought to be old. Source: Google News feed.

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Re: Chaos in Germany

#180 Post by OFSO » Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:14 pm

The Bundestag wanted to close German borders to incomers from infected countries such as the UK. The EU Commission said this wasn't possible without permission from Brussels. The Germans have gone ahead and done it anyway. How long before Berlin follows Budapest's lead and orders five million vaccine doses directly from China, ignoring the edict that supplies must only come via the EU Commission health authority.

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