Rescuing Banks in Spain & Germany
Being german citizen living in Spain I have been ashamed with the german government "rescuing" banks that had driven themselves into bancrupcy with tax payers' money and Spain not having to do so. In Spain there has been a meeting with government and banks where supposedly none of the banks had asked for government funds in order to be rescued - we don't know what really happened there (it must have been around 2010) as the meeting has been held behind closed doors (noone had been admitted but bank managers and representatives of the government) and the only ones who stated anything were the banks saying that nobody requested anything. "Spanish banks are the best ones in the world", as everybody knows - this has been a usual statement made by ALL spaniards who cared about the banking system - (they say the same about their social security and pride themselves for Obama's people having been in Spain to learn from the spanish social security - what 90% of these people don't know is that Obama's assessors had been in all european countries to study the social security! As the spanish government "only stated that they have been in Spain", people like to think that they have "only been here"!).
Back to banks!
This week we had the downfall of "Bankia" (which has been among the best banks in the world - as I have learned in these eleven years in Spain) and just for curiosity today I looked up the "unbelievable" and criminally negative figures of german banks. Which in the end has cost german taxpayers 13.000 MILLION €uro!!! This figure has been published by FOCUS on April 27th 2012. This is the figure for ALL banks that "needed" to be "rescued" for misleading clients' funds - we don't know how much the managers charged for driving these companies into bancrupcy (when am I going to get a company to lead into bancrupcy and get millions from it?).
Today it has been published by El Pais that only the Bankia Group's "toxic actives" are around 30.000 Million €uro! This is three times more of the whole of the german banks needed .... only by one group! There is no "Santander", "BBVA" nor the "Cajas de Ahorro" (which have had a massive amount of fusions lately, so noone knows what is going on anymore) or other "big banks" in the country.
We don't know yet whether the government is willing to bail out one of the "best banks in the world", but it seems to me that they will have to, as they are "relevant to the system" (for keeping it  going - did anybody ask anyone who actually wants this system to keep going on like that?).
Our new spanish government says that they won't do it, but they did the same with lowering the cost for companies to fire their people - which in the end led thousands of companies to laying off workers for literally no money, etc. "pp".

Is there any reason for taxpayers keeping on paying their taxes? Taxes in Europe had the intention of keeping social peace, allowing almost evcerybody a life of dignity, but now it seems that all our taxes ore going into outer space, just to keep the commissions of some, asuring a life of poverty to those who can not take care of their own income anymore, which obviously has to be enough to face always growing prices.
Good night.

Guttenberg, Althusmann + "Copy and paste"

In Germany we've had a couple of copying scandals with politicians who made their "doctor" on our universities by copying from other works without documenting these passages as being from someone else's authorship.
Most known should be the scandal around "our" former minister of defense who had to leave mainly due to this scandal - but not only due to this, there was also his incapacity for being a minister.
Now I have been reading an article in "my" newspaper about the "copy art" of Mr Althausmann who by chance also happened to have a very important role being the chairman of the "Kultusministerkonferenz" (KMK) , being "the" institution in Germany in charge of "proper scientifc work" (basically).
In a later article, an interview with Mr Wolfgang Löwer, there I thought why our universities don't run the "plagium software" on ANY work, EVERY student delivers, in order to show the students what can be found with the state of the technology at the moment, besides making them aware of their future as copycats.
Well, what I was going to say is that when I studied (Literature translation - my first attempt), I've had a "professor" in a spanish seminar (this prof did not speak any Spanish at all!) who had literally not allowed me having "own ideas".
It was a seminar about "Carmen Laforet: Nada" - a dreadful book. And I happened to realizing that "Nada" (Nothing / Nothingness) has been published short after Jean Paul Sartre's "L'Être et le néant (1943), which was a work "en vouge" in 1945, which every intellectual had "received" by that time, and in my opinion the title was simply a marketing effect in order to selling the book. And I simply wanted to show my deception with Carmen Laforet's work and the title had "nothing" to do with the content of the book - besides the fact that "Nada" was what I had gotten from this book.
What we (professor "and me") got to in the end was the I had no right for having own ideas or even own thoughts, as everything I stated had to be "scientifically documented". This makes it impossible to generate fresh ideas, because everything has to be "stated before" by someone who has published something already AND THEREFORE many people simply supress the documentation of their "inspirations", because they have been "systematically tought" "NOT TO THINK" and CAN not have ideas by themselves, besides this there is the social pressure of having the "Doctor Title" (if you want to achieve something in your life).
So in my (humble) opinion the problem is not that much in people copying without documenting where these thoughts come from, but in the root of plainly incompetent and inadecquate people teaching in universities.
Let's be honest: our (german) university personell is extremely incompetent in teaching, because this is not their purpose. It's the fact that they are being forced to teaching in order to reaching higher in the hierarchy of the university. And instead of making students hungry for research they simply "steamroll" every attempt of independent thinking.
It seems that "if you want to fight the system you have to be part of it" (which is almost impossible), and this approach also kills any innovation or progress, because everybody inside this system (obviously) wants to keep what he's achieved - as it must have been a fight for himself with himself to get into this system.
In order to conclude this topic in some way I would really suggest that universities run "rip off"-software on any and all student's work being delivered in universities, not only to detect "rip offs" but also for detecting "bad teaching" in universities. ... still: morality is something that has to come "from home", and people who did not learn that honesty is a value by itself should not be allowed into political carreers and in these cases of plagiarism these people should be banned for life from having any public function - as with corruption.
They have the right for defense, but in this case: "in dubio, CONTRA reo" (them being "public personalities" having to represent).
Another issue is the influence (specially) these people have on media, as they usually are very popular and know how to sell themselves and their image - even the image being bad they achieve (through the media) selling themselves as victims.

Yet another unpunished oil spill

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, there is another excellent opportunity to turn our back to the oil industry: the great Deep Water Horizon desaster in the gulf of Mexico - we even have an entrance to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill!
Now some of the old (Bush-)regime are trying to blame Mr Barack Obama! This is incredible, the smeary oil family trying to blame other for desasters caused by their supporters!
Luckily BP seem to have found a solution to the desaster (after several others resulted in being futile): they now prposed to let the oil leak until they reached a proportion o 75% oil to 25 % water (and other debris like animal cadavers and all that sort of useless stuff). Once this proportion has been reached they can just drain the whole Gulf of Mexico and fill all petrol stations in the world for the next 125 years!
Finally BP is solving all our energetic problems ... even if some of the animals may not be as fossile as they's like them to be.
If you want to have a laugh about the shit loads of solutions the criminals are giving, please visit "the latest lie site":
http://www.bp.com/bodycopyarticle.do?categoryId=1&contentId=7052055

The whole issue is very well canalized as no one on Earth seems to request any responsibilities. Everybody just wants to see money ... maybe some animals won't be able to go to the next supermarket to buy some soap or food or so, but well ... that's their own fault, they never seemed to be interested in money.

We don't need global warming as long as we have our "Exxon Valdez's", "Deep Water Horizons" (never mind how black these horizons may be) ... and all the others we don't even know about,

Good night, big money!

Welcome to Africa

This is Spain in summer: hot, really wonderfully hot! And complicated ... only in summer it really compensates. When it's cold, there is no charm what so ever to it, nor an excuse.

Well, here in Spain "we" claim to have "the best banks in the world". Problem is, they don't work!

I have tried to deposit some money on my account yesterday, and after having been in a queue for over 30 minutes, in a bank which has received a "european award of excellence", I was so happy to be able to read this over and over again until it was my turn. Then eventually I got there, a very friendly lady was at the counter (which is not very common, at least in this part of the country), I handed over the money as do basically every month, she punched in the data and ... all of a sudden she asked me my name. I almost told her that I am married already, but didn't. So she asked me my ID ... that was when I knew it was an "official question". I told her my ID number. And then she went on about my name ... asked me how to spell it. There was something strange in the air ... our monthly ritual has been deritualized. She then asked for all the data again, shook her head slightly, and said that there seems to be something wrong with the system, asking me to come back later. So I went back an hour later, had another 30 minutes in a queue of one of the best banks in the world, and after being attended by the same friendly woman, we reached the same point. She asked me to call the "technical department", which cost me money and time ... to find out, that everything is fine with the account. I asked them whether there has been a change in the policies, they said "no". So I went back to the office of one of the best banks in the world. This time it only took me 15 minutes to be attended, by this ever friendly lady. I told her, what I had been told. She tried again with the same result, asking me to try again later or tomorrow ... as the best banks in the world are only open to the public until 14:30. That's what I call service!

So I called the technical department once more, and told them what had happened. This time (a woman) said that the system had been updated and it could be due to that, so she asked me to try again the next day.

Guess what I did first thing this morning?

... yes ... "the best banks in the world", where it is impossible to deposit cash! Today it took me 45 minutes in the queue, because in front of me there was a woman who was trying to deposit a cheque. Her problem was that her agency had been closed due to some sort of crisis that is hitting other banks all over the world, excempting the best ones, and now she has been told that her bank account did not exist. She then explained that her account did exist, but due to the shutting down of her old agency something must have changed and the bank may not have told her. Well, the end of the story was that this good woman has not been able to deposit a cheque on her own bank account. I felt an immediate sympathy for someone I would usually have not looked at with much of it. So she has been sent home with her cheque and has been asked to come back later (this sounded familiar to me). Then it was another woman's turn and then I was allowed to try again.

Well, same story again. "The system does not allow me to do anything." (But it was not the friendly woman of the day before, but this one told me that they have been with problems for cash deposits for some time.) So I called the "miraculous" technical department of the awarded bank to tell them that once again it had been impossible to deposit cash money onto my account. So I once more have been told that everything was OK with the account and that I could deposit the money. So I told them, that exactly that was the reason for my phone calls: I could NOT make a deposit on my own account with this very bank! I have been asked to go there again and to try again.

So I swallowed all my anger, waited an hour, and went back into my little hell, waited another 30 minutes in the excitig queue and finally it was my turn again. ... there she was, the friendly lady of yesterday. She recognized me and sent an "I'm so sorry smile". So there we were to try again. at the third attempt she said: "Ah, let me just try this ..." then she started punching in something, looked up and smiled at me. Then she asked "How much did you want to put in?" (In that moment her face turned into a "bank-face" to me ... she had lost all her charm and sympatghy and became just another bloody part of this corrupt and rotten system.) I told her the amount and ... then she changed again and said: "do you know what it was? ... They have changed the system. Now you have to put in the two surnames, (in Spain everybody has two surames) so I filled in the second surname with Xs and it worked ... just for you to know the next time."

So, there I stood, had put my money to the bank, feeling like a fool. I asked myself, why I had made such an effort of satisfying a bloody bank who does not give a damn for me as long as I am a client of theirs. Once I threaten to go they will start caring, but why should I want to change the bank if it's going to be the same story just with some names changed?

If these are supposed to be the best banks in the world, I don't want to know what banks in other underdeveloped countries may be like!

Spain is closer to Africa than to Brussels, that is a fact, is perfectly clear and can be confirmed on a daily basis.

Auto-photo

Did you realize that 90% of the pictures on the internet have either on the left or the right hand side a part of the portraied person's arm?

... they are all self-portraits! ... sad humanity! We are now taking pictures with digital cameras of ourselves, just to see if one of the millions we take is OK in order to publish it on the Web. Most of the people don't even care about the background. Like the girl I've watched today, crossing the bridge infront of our house. There she was, holding her arm to the sky, something in her hand, pointing at her. Smile, flashlight. I have seen the background before she even thought about it! She may have had a pretty face (it was too far away for me to see it), but it was no use! The background was a street with loads of cars parked ... really not nice to look at. ... and if there was anybody walking on the street, it may have been someone alone walking his dog.

... next sad part of our mankind! 

We don't take any children to the playgrounds anymore! ... playgounds have turned into massive dog crapyards. The few children some of us (in our Western "culture") still have can not be taken there anyway, as it really stinks up to the skies, and secondly we over-protect the few kids we have in a way that is completely against nature! ... they are all bound to be small Michael Jacksons, as it seems to me. I have never seen as many allergic people as I have seen in the last couple of years. When I was a child allergies were rare, today almost everybody is allergic against something. I don't know the reason behind this phenomenon, I just see that it is like that. I have been told it could be due to the rinse we add to our clothes when washing them. As we want our clothes to be smooth when we wear them. I don't really know what the problem with rough clothes is, but as we want our children to be as cozy as possible, we overhear all criticism and wash our clothes smoothly, and when they reach the age of 10 or 12, there will be a surprise waiting for all of us: what will me dear, beloved child be allergic to? ... I think deep down below we want our children to be sick and ill, so we can pamper them even more while we can, as soon they will reach the age of wanting to watch tv, and then they are lost for us anyway, as we can not influence them in what they watch, beause they won't let us tell them what is right or what is wrong.

Never there has been so much literature around about how important it is to spend some quality time with our children, so they can become sound and healthy adults some day, when they reach the age.

Never there has been so much literature around about how harmful "eternal idiot tubes" are (be it tv or computers). But what do we do, for the sake of a little bit of relaxation in our lives, we turn on the tv or buy a couple of children's games so "they can learn how to use a computer".  They don't learn anything with all that silly Barbie and Polly Pocket or Shin Chan and Pokemon stupidity. All we lead them to is egosim and intolerance. Why, first of all because we don't know in which direction they evolve as we can not be asked to spend time with them and rather hand them over to "professionals", or the grandparents or even a nanny (of whom we usually don't know the least) ... and then one day we wonder why they don't obey us. Can our western "civilization" be that decadent already (and again!) that we just think about ourselves and can not be bothered to think about the flesh of our flesh we have planted onto this terreneal surface? Obviously not, we need to fulfill our personal plans and expectations, and once we have achieved this auto-fulfilling we can start thinking about our children! ... so first is always us ourselves! .. that's why we are always taking first plane pictures of ourselves and don't give the least for the background! 

This is the way our superficial world works. And it would be so easy to change, if we could only stick to our Western principles of "loving our neighbours" and the  whole "christian story", we could have a much better world with educated, loving children. 

Once we start thinking about them it's too late. They have spent their first six years in an environment of lack of attention, and childen do need attention, but not in the material way we are giving it to them. They need attention in an affectionate way. Why is it so hard to step down from our high egosit horse, just taking pictures of ourselves, why can we not ask someone passing by to take this  picture of us? ... but even if you offer to someone to take the picture, people refuse it! They prefer to see their own arm to remembering the situation when this unknown person came by and took this nice picture with a nice background.

The Royal Spanish Scum: DOWN THE CROWN!

 Lucky who lives in a country without a royal family to carry!

I have just had another AMAZING information about the Royal family in Spain. Accordnig to the info this year, due to the financial crisis, they will leave later for their holidays. Does this make sense to anybody? ... because to fuel up their boat to get to Mallorca it takes some 20.000€ - just to fuel the bloody boat! Do you know who pays that money? Taxpayers - that's me among others. Now I ask myself: does this family represent me in any way? ... I am an expat, am not allowed to vote for the national government, have to pay taxes and am allowed to pay the holidays to someone who does not represent me in any way? ... by the way: I have also contributed to paying the prince's 70 Million € mansion, which he "needed", because the wing he's had for himself in the castle was not enough!

Chop these heads off!

It has also been nice to hear that they "are going to use the lemons from the orchard this year." Does this mean that in years before they threw them away or let them rot on the fields?

And ... on top of that they are "going to watch the use of the AC"!

What does this mean now? I personally do care about global warming and the use of energy, and them, who don't have to pay for it anyway, don't give a flying screw for it? Sorry which is the 16th Century we are living in?

No doubt, that Juan Carlos has done something for Spain: when Franco handed over the power to him, he established democracy as the form o government, attributing himself just representative functions. But that was about what he has done - from the on everybody "had the chance to pay" for him, his family, the empolyees, everything. Is it worth all the money? ... could all this money not better be invested into social security for the millions of unemployed in this country? Is this not more important than a clown fighting with a clown like Hugo Chávez about "education". ... and we still cut trees to read this kind of "news" in the papers! ... by the way, I was in favour of Chávez, as you can imagine. He was disrespectful, yes he was, but who is Juan Carlos to "request respect"? Has he been elected at any stage? (I know Chavez' elections are dodgy!) ... but this "king" comes from a family of slaughterers, slave dealers, killers and corrupt.

Kriegskinder und Kriegsenkel

I've just read a nice articel reviewing a couple of books in German, of course, about the generation of the "childern of WWII" ... and even the grandchildren. I'll have to read them all, as it looks!

The article has been published in "Die Zeit": "Die Kriegskinder sind unter uns", fomr Die Zeit Nr 20 / 2009. ... it seems as if the Germans now have reached a point at which we can speak about ourselves without blaming one another. And it seems there is another abyss opening under the "German surface". The damage we have done to Europe an ourselves is even bigger than we thought!

It is true thought that if you ask any German now alive about his grandparents or great grandparents, none of them has ever been in the SS or the NSDAP. Most of them fought in the war, but nobody was really a Nazi. All this has been covered up and there has been absolute silence about the issue. Many of the "war children" have been traumatized by silence and compensated silence and their parents errors with achievements and work - is one of the theories in the article. Now after retiring or just about to the old wounds crack open and we are infront of a generation of old, suffering people, without being able to do anything, as us, "the war's grandchildren" are the least entitled to try and heal exactly those who passed on the values and habits of their parents'. 

My grandfather on my fathers' side, supposedly always was a "social democrat", working class, but we never went deeper on this topic. I was too young by the time and when I had reached the age decided to stay away from my family ... maybe it has something to do with this trauma, passed on from my father to me.

Nevertheless, my grandmother had been in the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädchen) the Nazi-organization for girls, for them to do sports and to lear how to be good wives and mothers. And she admitted liking it and backing "the little bit she understood of politics". ... but here again, it never went beyond that, as she said that she did not understand anything about politics.

Some of the loudest years in our history will be the most silenced ones. Just as it happened with the dictatorships in South America. It's a pitty there will be no "oral history" to this saddest part of recent history. We leave it all to scientists who will hardly grasp the "feeling of the time".

... if we bury it in silence there's no need to write anymore about it.