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Nope, no Dirndl, she comes from Hesse not Bavaria.

k3k3 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:26 pm

Nope, no Dirndl, she comes from Hesse not Bavaria.

Ah!

However, my train of thought could get me in trouble, suffice to say she would could wear a Dirndl with aplomb.


Geil auch!

A plomb isn't part of Hessen national dress! (A somewhat leaden witticism.)

...and plombium is a soft metal, which is an inappropriate adjective concerning my nether regions when thinking of the lady in question.

Germany’s leading health institution has warned of a “very, very serious” situation as the country grapples with an accelerated third wave of coronavirus cases and a sluggish vaccination rollout.

On Sunday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control reported more than 17,800 new infections and 104 deaths.

Despite figures being usually slightly lower on weekends due to less testing, cases are rising compared with a week ago when the RKI registered nearly 12,200 cases and 68 deaths

From a highly reliable inside source: five years ago one of Germanys biggest industrial groups - the name reminds one of a male ejeculate - set up an international financial services group. It took off like a wildfire, but only in the UK. In Germany, as my source said, it was a flop because Germans don't understand financial services. Last week the Financial Board of Control decided to shut the group down, including the highly profitable UK section, with immediate effect, sacking everyone (including my source). The company has had seven - 7 - bids to purchase the financial services group, three very serious UK bids, but has rejected all offers as "too much bother" as the Board decided. Following on the Wirecard and Greensill fiascos, which have left whole towns and counties in Germany bankrupt, I can only shake my head in disbelief.

And for those to whom Wirecard is unfamiliar...

Wirecard employees hauled millions of euros of cash out of the group’s Munich headquarters in plastic bags over a period of years, according to former employees, suggesting that the payments company was looted even more brazenly than previously known.

The once high-flying fintech, which at its peak was worth €24bn, went bust last summer in one of Germany’s biggest accounting frauds. It collapsed after discovering that €1.9bn of corporate cash did not exist and that parts of its business in Asia were a sham.

Former employees have told Munich police investigating the fraud that staff repeatedly removed large amounts of cash from Wirecard’s head office, people with direct knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times.


The practice started as early as 2012, and six-digit amounts of banknotes were often moved in Aldi and Lidl plastic bags, former employees told the police. The total amount, the current whereabouts of the cash and the purpose of removing it from the building are unclear.

Wirecard, whose main business was processing payments for merchants, owned its own bank but did not have branches. As demand for cash grew over time, Wirecard Bank bought a safe which was located in the group’s headquarters in a Munich suburb.

At one point in May 2017, €500,000 in cash was delivered at a time when the safe was full, according to emails seen by the FT and a person with knowledge of the transaction. Some of the cash needed to be hidden elsewhere in the offices.

“From an insurance point of view, that’s crap,” a Wirecard employee wrote in an internal email seen by the FT, urging that delivery and collection of cash needed to be organised on the same day.

An employee, who worked at the headquarters for almost two years until 2018, told police that amounts of €200,000-€700,000 were removed frequently, sometimes several times per week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

That suggests more than €100m could have been removed. However, bank records that were seized by police only document cash withdrawals of around €6m, these people added.

At least some of the cash was recorded as withdrawn by clients of Wirecard Bank, among them suspicious business partners like Philippines-based payments company PayEasy, which prosecutors allege is one of the entities at the core of the fraud.

The former employees told police that many of the withdrawals were made by an assistant to a senior Wirecard manager, who was in charge of a Dubai-based subsidiary. She brought the plastic bags containing the cash to Munich’s airport on at least some of the occasions, where she handed them over to unknown individuals, according to the people familiar with the former employees’ testimony to police.

In one instance, a six-figure sum was allegedly destined for Manila-based Christopher Bauer, a former Wirecard employee who was in charge of PayEasy, which generated hundreds of millions of euros of fake Wirecard revenue. Bauer was reported dead shortly after Wirecard’s collapse.

The senior Wirecard manager, who told prosecutors that he transferred €4.5m of Wirecard funds to a hidden personal foundation in Liechtenstein, is also facing questions over up to €15m that was transferred from accounts at Wirecard Bank to accounts in the Caribbean island of Antigua, an offshore tax haven.

The accounts from which the €15m was withdrawn were held in the name of companies in Antigua and opened by citizens of Costa Rica, Antigua and the Philippines, according to documents seen by the FT. One of the account holders is also mentioned in the Panama Papers as the owner of a British Virgin Islands-based shell company.

Today's FT reports that Chancellor Merkel was talking up Wirecard to the Chinese while on a visit to the land, unaware that the polizei were already investigating Wirecard who she was recommending.

12,800 new cases of Covid in past 24 hours. Oh well....

CureVac, based in Tübingen Germany, make a Covid vaccine. Sadly it's been proven to have only 47% efficiency, so sales have collapsed. Fortuitously, before the news came out, they persuaded the German government to buy a 23% share in the company. Doppel bonuses all round!

(Source: today's FT)

Another guest of the German government causes some issues

Merkel tried to persuade Member States to insist on quarantine for all arriving British. Spain told her to f*uck off; they need our money... Science Rules (not).

A 24 year old Somali with psychological problems wielding a knife and shouting "Allah Akbar" killing a number of people. Thank heavens it's not a terrorist incident, according to the Polizei. Might have been serious.

Armin Laschet, president of Nord Rhine Westphalia, blamed the flooding catastrophe on climate change and said protection measures must be accelerated.

He avoided mentioning the fact that Angela Merkel, whom he is likely to replace, closed down Germany's nuclear power production for fear of tsunamis and replaced it with coal-fired power stations burning some of the most polluting coal in Europe, mined from Germany's open cast mines, and even filthier coal imported from Poland, which even the Poles won't burn. Still, never let facts get in the way of a good rant about climate change.

OFSO wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:18 am

some of the most polluting coal in Europe, mined from East Germany's open cast mines,

During my visit to the East before reunification I visited an opencast 'brown coal' mine.

The flooding in Germany, Belgium and Holland is horrendous - I feel so sorry for those affected.

I agree, some shocking damage amongst the worst I've ever seen.

An increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events is a widely recognised likely result of anthropogenic climate change.

Scientists recognise it, though Covid-deniers and holocaust-deniers and climate-change deniers never will, even when standing on their rooftops begging for a lift from a passing rescue helicopter.

Not true Plum.

Scientist see an odd weather event, and even though their climate projections never predicted it, they use it to support the usual AGW bollocks!