🙂 I use All Father’s Day for digesting the flood of information that came in over the last week, and also for contemplation and meditation. Actually, there were quite a few things that attracted my attention in the last few days!
Some seem to have watched “Dallas” too often on TV.
The way the great old men of VW and Porsche fight is really remarkable. Economical leaders fight to be on the first place. Schaeffler takes over Conti and Conti takes over Schaeffler. Kaufhof takes over Karstadt, or else not. Hertie is taken over by nobody. Like in “Dallas”. That, too, was quite spectacular in those days, although it was more about oil.
In the end, we will all need federal money.
Some others seem to have watched too much James Bond.
Their talk is of enemy states the agents of which engage in internet espionage against German companies. They say a new cold internet war is imminent. Supermarkets allegedly have distributed virus-infected USB sticks capable of annihilating firewalls (ha, ha). Hello gold finger, fear is fed. As I see it, this is totally infantile.
Once upon a time, civil agencies only ordered computers that had no floppy drive. Why not lock the USB entry these days?
It goes without saying that you should never put really valuable data into a VPN on the internet, no matter how well protected it is. To me that would look extremely careless. What is, however, far more important is that you can absolutely trust those people who have access to sensitive data. In other words: put computers with important data under lock and key and give the keys only to absolutely trustworthy persons. To be sure, that is contrary to “global development” which says that you should “follow the sun where possible”, but I guess there is no other way.
Many feel like they are nobility at the court of the Sun King – and help themselves to the Goodies.
In England, members of Parliament put everything they can on their tax return application. Germans do not need to do that, because their allowance is sufficient. They throw away their citizens money and follow lobbyist interests. In order to remain in power, they distribute presents nobody can afford.
They limit civil rights and now they want to “shanghai” the internet, too, by introducing censorship and supervision. And they want to save us from piracy (both on the oceans and in the internet). As compensation, we have “really strict compliance rules” in business – and more of a “you-are-my-friend-I-am-your-friend” attitude than ever!
But farmers get even less for every litre of milk they sell.
Milk is worth nothing. Oil does a little better. Oil multi-millionaires have a strong lobby. Farmers have no lobby at all. Farmers’ wives on hunger strike may be a nice event, but nobody is interested any more, especially if they end their strike after four days.
But private pharmacies will continue to exist.
They have a great lobby that deserves what it is paid. And that means that they will continue to get well paid and give “competent advice”. The large pharmacies are obstacles. It goes without saying that the large pharmacies, too, thrive on federal money. First the money passes the health fond and then goes on to the pharmaceutical companies. The health fond, too, is sick and needs plenty of medicine in the form of Euros. As far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, there was never a question about it.
How much money sticks where?
The private hospital chains are doing particularly well in the business. They celebrate their green account numbers every weekend with their investors. The general and local practitioners are not at all amused about this, although there used to be a time when they, too, had a very good lobby. And unemployment insurance contributions have been reduced.
Nevertheless, we extended the limit for reduced working hours to two years and pay the social security fees from the seventh month of reduced working hours on back to the employer. Can that work? What sense is there in reduced working hours over a period of two years (except long-term cost optimization)? Again, the lobbyists of the really big companies did their homework well.
And the poor federal agency will walk deep into the red tape. But this, again, will be paid by the taxpayer. Who cares about a few more insignificant billion Euros? Or will the contribution rate be increased again next year? Maybe they will force those enterprises that have not introduced reduced working hours to refund those expenses?
What makes it worse is that the estimated federal tax volume will decline drastically. That is why the Bavarian minister of finances ordered an immediate stop to spending. I wonder if that will also include “system relevant” enterprises.
The townships are deep in red tape, the civic debt explodes.
Production sites in small towns are fewer and fewer, because China has the mega inland market and now it produces its machines at home. Before long, there will be enough production streets in China for supplying the entire world with cars. Thus, the Japanese economy will go down the drain and the Germans will not be able to compete as they used to.
But at least ARD and ZDF want to save us from private television companies.
That is what the GEZ is for. It follows us all. Our company pays a second time for car radios. And then there is the Gema. For my new laptop. I have to pay a Gema fee. These days, I buy a new computer every half year (minimum), which means that I pay a lot more Gema fees (twelve times as much) than I would pay if I only bought a new computer every three years. My use of GEMA, however, has not increased.
There are times when I really think I will despair because of all this unreasonableness!
But that is, of course, not what we do. There are other worlds, too, full of people who think, act and work differently. Full of people who appreciate trust and ethical behaviour. They are equipped with some common sense. That works.
It is surprisingly often that I find these kinds of people in the internet!
I meet many people through my blog and my twitter activities. And I never stop being surprised at how much sympathy and sensibility I discover. I find out about many people who have remained down-to-earth and moderate. That is good, because this is how we will manage to survive even hard times.
Besides, you even find new political parties in the internet. They demand a glassy start, instead of the glassy citizen. They write very sensible programs. If my judgement of the internet is correct, then they will be more and more of a success. So old parties – beware!
Most likely, this will again be an example for traditional wisdom being correct:
Less is more!
Wouldn’t that be a nice motto for an electoral campaign?
RMD
(translated by EG)
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