Folkestone- not only the sky was dull

I’ve been to Folkestone for a few days last week with my girl-friend. We stayed at the Southcliff Hotel which had a great offer. The hotel was really nice, a bit old-fashioned furniture and worn down, but okay, especially for that price. The bathroom was very small though. Has anyone stayed there, too? What are your experiences?

The first late afternoon we went for a walk through town which seemed to be abandoned. Lots of shops were opened only from Thursday to Saturday. I guess it’s different in summer. The creative quarter is very nice with a narrow street going down to the harbor. It’s a shame that quite a few shops are empty. I reckon with the recession it’s everywhere like this now. We went for a drink to the “Pullman” which is an excellent pub. Open fire, nice furniture, an exotic beer garden, just perfect.

The next morning I went on a photo walk, but wasn’t very successful at all. The sky was very dull. I walked through the Lea Coastal Park, took a few shots, went along the seafront, passed the Gran Canary Hotel which is derelict beyond belief, before reaching the harbour which is surmounted by one of the ugliest hotels I have ever seen. The Grand Burstin. It was low tide and at least the fishing boats were quite interesting. After less than two hours I was back at our hotel. I took 72 shots altogether of which I deleted 58. I keep 13 for myself and only one goes for sale.

I really seem to be a moaner today which I’m honestly not, but the Greek meal in the evening was a bit disappointing. I had Souvlaki which wasn’t spiced and the fries were too crispy (not to say hard) and Frances’ potatoes were just microwaved.

What impressed me the next morning was the local Wetherspoons. It is located in an old church. Fantastic building and the drinks are so cheap. The East Kent Arms was fine, too. We had an early dinner at Papa’s Fish & Chips which was really good.

After checking-out on Saturday morning we didn’t feel like travelling home straight away. So we went for another couple of pints to Wetherspoons before getting on the train. Frances back to London and me back to Hastings. It will be interesting to see where yet another smart deal of booking.com will take us next. Can’t wait for it.

Thanks for reading.

 

Photo of the Day

Folkestone Harbour

 

Fuelling the Hate

Finding someone to pick on has, as we all know, great tradition in Germany. 80 years ago it was the Jews, now it is the unemployed. Don’t get me wrong, what happened to the Jews is horrible and I don’t want to compare it by means of cruelty, just by means of segregation of people.

Politicians and media instigate on purpose different classes of people against each other to conceal their anti-social politics. Unemployed people get insulted every day. They are described as slobs who don’t want to work and popular TV-shows always have one of these “slobs” in their discussion rounds. Of course, there are some people who don’t want to work, but the majority tries really hard. Where are about 12 million unemployed or on low income people supposed to work?

The lies

• “Job Wonder Germany”
  Newspapers like the “Bild-Zeitung” are just ridiculous. On the front page they claim the “Job Wonder Germany” and show figures of declining unemployment, while on page 2 they write about thousands of job losses. Officially there are hundreds of thousands of jobs available.
• Benefits
  Lies are being told about the amount of benefits unemployed people are receiving, i.e. they get not only paid their benefits, but also all their maintenance costs like electricity etc.
• People simply don’t want to work
  A picture of undereducated, lower-class people who live comfortably on the taxpayer’s money is drawn on purpose. Working people shall get the impression that all unemployed people are lazy and drink all day, i.e. there is a new “benefit” where children of poor families get “education vouchers” to pay for some of their expenses for school materials. The government claims that they have to issue vouchers because otherwise the parents of the poor children would spend all the money on drink and tobacco.

The truth

• “Job Wonder Germany”
  Declining unemployment figures are just a fiddle of the statistics. People are forced to work for one Euro per hour, are put on trainings, get send into early retirement, put on 50+ programmes, work trials, etc. They all don’t appear in the statistics.

  And if there is work available, in most cases it is temporary (job agencies) and on very low wages, so people have to “top-up” their income by the jobcentres. Of course, these people don’t count as unemployed, too.

• Benefits
  The truth is that it is very hard to live on these benefits. The list below shows why. The amounts are calculated per month.
  • Food, beverages, tobacco products………€ 132.71 (approx. £ 107).
    Can you live on £3.50 per day?
  • Clothing and footwear ……………………… € 34.13 (approx. £27).
  • Electricity……………………………………….. € 26.87 (approx. £21).
    Who pays only £21 for electricity per month?
  • Furniture…………………………………….. € 27.77 (approx. £22).
    What kind of furniture can you pay for £22 p?
  • Appliances and their maintenance &
    Health Care……………………………………… € 13.21(approx. £10).
    Healthy living is guaranteed!
  • Transport Public transport …………………..€ 19.20 (approx. £15)
    Does that buy you a monthly bus pass or even a tank filling?
  • Messaging, telephone, post …………………€ 20.38 (approx. £16).
    That just pays for the line rental!
  • Leisure, entertainment, culture …………….€ 38.71 (approx. £30).
  • Hotels and restaurants………………………… € 10.33 (approx. £8).
    Enjoy your holiday and your great meal out!
  • Other goods and services …………………….€ 21.69 (approx. £17).
•  People simply don’t want to work
  Most of the unemployed people try really hard to find work. They write hundreds of applications and still can’t find work.

Why?

The simple reason behind all this is economics. The government wants to establish (and successfully has) a low income sector. People will work for very little money just not to be one of them lazy, drunken unemployed. Poor people don’t have any lobby. The government is controlled by lobbyists of the big companies who exploit their workers. All the hate that is spread comes into their favour. A small elite earns lots and lots of money while the poor get poorer.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Child Poverty in Germany

They are hungry kids. They don’t have warm shoes in winter. They don’t have their own rooms. They don’t take part in school trips and they never go on holidays.

For about 2.5 million children in Germany that is the bitter reality. This means that about every fourth child lives in poverty. A shame for a rich country.

The door to a brighter future is often locked for poor children.

 

Implications of the poverty

• Poor children often get poor education.
  The education system is split three-dimensionally: “Hauptschule” (Main School), “Realschule (Middle School) and “Gymnasium” (High School). Children of poor families rarely make it above the main school, which gives them only 9 years of basic education altogether. Often even “simple” jobs like becoming a hairdresser ask for a middle school leaving certificate. So there are very few apprenticeships available for these kids.
• Poor children are impaired in their sanitary and physical development.
  Children of poor families are not fed regularly and often get only unhealthy food. Not every child gets a warm meal every day. Parents just can’t afford it. Every day there are long queues outside soup kitchens and “shops” of an organisation called “The Table” where poor people get some leftover food from supermarkets and restaurants. They often have to pay one Euro for it to keep their dignity.

  Children of poor families often can’t take part in sporting activities, because their parents can’t afford a membership of the sports club. Many children just spend their days in front of a TV.

• Poor children live in bad housing circumstances.
  Rents are high in Germany and poor people only get a certain amount of housing benefit. And even if a family would find a nice and cheap place to live in, they still might not be allowed to live there. This is because the government says that poor people only can have a certain amount of space, no matter how low the rent is. For a single person this 45 square metres plus 15 square metres for every additional person. So, very often poor families live in housing estates. There is even some talk about moving poor people into old abandoned barracks of the allied forces. Rooms for everyone and a “community” kitchen. And as it the King’s birthday today, the song “In the Ghetto” comes into my mind.
• Poor children don’t have a proper social-life.
  Cinema visits, zoo trips, museums, sports clubs are often out of the reach of poor children. Youth Clubs are closing down one after the other, because of funding problems. Public swimming pools can’t be kept open, library fees can’t be afforded… So children often hang around at bus stops or just watch rubbish TV all day.

Why are they poor?

• Parents are often unemployed or work for pennies as there is no minimum wage in Germany.
• Lone parents don’t earn enough money to support their children or earn enough, but have to work so hard they don’t have any time for them at all.
• There is only insufficient support by the government.
  Every family gets a child allowance for their kids. If the family is rich or poor doesn’t matter. Okay, equality for all. But: The child allowance doesn’t help poor families at all, because it is deducted from their other benefits. A rise in child allowance would lead to a deduction in benefits. Poor families never get any more money. This rise only benefits the rich.

Why isn’t the government doing anything?

• Instead of putting billions into other countries just to look good in the world, the German government should take care of their own people. That doesn’t mean that other countries are not to be supported, but you just can’t neglect your own people this way.

• You can get the impression, and this might sound like a conspiracy theory, that the German government does that on purpose. They want to breed a stupid, poor working class that is forced to work for pennies to serve a small elite. Instead of educating their own youth properly they are looking for “experts” from all over the world to work for good money in Germany. On the contrary they pay unemployed German experts money if they leave the country. Why? Because foreigners are not allowed to vote. Too many intelligent Germans are not wanted in Germany.

What can be done?

The best solution is a basic income for everyone (see: How does it all work? and “The Basic Income”). And until then there should be free education and free meals from kindergarten to university. Library fees and sports club membership fees have to be scraped. Public transport and cultural events should be at a highly discounted rate.

Thanks for reading.

 

Merkel the Great?

Angela Merkel, the saviour of Europe. Angela Merkel, the power woman who holds it all together. Is she going into history known as the preserver of the Euro? The knight in shining armour? The leader of an economically strong country?

Well, you could get the impression if you have a look around the international newspapers. I, as a German national living in England, can tell you that this is not the truth. I left Germany more than two years ago because of the ramshackle system of pressure that prevails in Germany.

It is amazing that most people abroad have no idea of what is really going on in Germany. To the outside world it looks great. The shine of an economically successful country is definitely retained. But how is that achieved?

One euro jobs

• Unemployed people are forced to work for one Euro per hour in a placement that lasts 6 months.
• After this time, if you work hard, you have the chance to be taken on a properly paid job (so the government says). In real life this hardly ever happens. Why should it? There are always “fresh” One Euro Jobbers to be exploited.
• Officially, the work these people are doing serve the communities. The truth is that there is big business behind it. For instance, there are companies that run “Application Trainings”. For each unemployed person that takes part in a course they get paid about 800 Euros by the government. And who are the tutors? One Euro Jobbers! So, let’s say, there are 20 people in one course. The company gets 16.000 Euros for it and doesn’t have to pay any wages at all, because the One Euro Jobber-Tutor is paid by the government a rather ridiculous “wage” of 20 Euros for 20 hours of teaching per week. Do you think that companies would take one tutor on and pay them? No way! The government replenishes them with new work force all the time.

Nil euro work trials

• Some unemployed people are not even that “lucky” to get a One Euro Job. They are forced to do “work trials”. These usually last three months.
• The companies that “take you on” get paid about 500 Euros to let you work in their establishment. After three months these companies would be very stupid to give you a proper job and pay you, when they can easily have another unemployed person to work for them and get paid for them.

No minimum wage

• There is no minimum wage in Germany. Lots of people who work full time are not earning enough to make a living.
• To make up for this gap between the wages and the unemployment/housing benefits these workers have to “top-up” their wages with benefits. An embarrassing procedure to fill out forms every month and send your wage slips to the jobcentres to calculate your benefits. You are also forced to keep looking for jobs that are paid at a better rate, so you won’t receive any benefits anymore.

The unemployment statistics

• Every person who does a One Euro Job or a work trial is not counted as “unemployed”. So of course the unemployment figures are relatively low.
• People who “top-up” their wages are not counted in the statistics.
• Official unemployment figure: about 2.9 million
• Real unemployment figures including One Euro Jobbers / Nil Euro Jobbers and Workers dependent on Top-Up’s: about 12 million

Thank you for reading.

Photo of the Day

Winter in Stralsund- Social freeze in Germany

 

The Basic Income

Continuing from yesterday’s blog I will go into some detail about the basic income today.

1. From birth to death the state will pay you a life-long basic income. No questions asked.

   This will give you the security you need in life. What you do with the rest of it is up to you. No pressure. Unfold your creativity, only do the things you like.

2. Scrap the minimum wage, promote paid “volunteering” work. (You and companies will be happy)

   That sounds like a step back in time. The companies surely will be very happy with this, but how can you be happy with less wages?
   With a basic income paid by the government, you will already have your “wages” on which you can live on. You don’t have to take on a job you don’t like. You are going to choose a job you fancy. If lots of people want to have the same job, the wages might be low, but that doesn’t really matter, because you already have your basic income and you just want to work in your dream job, even if it is for a very low extra income. Or, for example, you always wanted to work for charity, but never had the time to do it. Now you can. Your basic income covers your living expenses and you have the time to help. This will make you lead a much more fulfilled life.

3. Just one tax, but much higher than now: VAT.

   We are all paying lots of different taxes. Some are direct, lots are indirect. The whole system is very complicated. All of this is not necessary. The government could save billions of pounds by abolishing all taxes, apart from one: VAT. Think of the huge amount of administration work saved!
   VAT is a direct tax and you only pay it, if you purchase something or use a service. So it is your choice for what you pay tax. Tax on your wages? Not necessary. You are going to spend your money anyway and pay VAT. So the government will get their money there. This would make companies very happy to. They would be able to pay lower wages (you have your basic income and can work for less) and create more jobs.
   Of course, VAT would have to be much higher than today, but the whole system would be fairer. You just pay tax for the things you really want.

4. Put a cap on rents.

   One of the main problems we have in our days is to be able to afford appropriate living space. Rents are getting higher and higher and people spend half of their wages or even more just to pay their rent. The government has to put a cap on rents so nobody has to live in shoeboxes for a ridiculous amount of money.

5. Demolish jobcentres and the urge to find work.

   Here the government can save billions, too. There won’t be any need for jobcentres anymore. No more calculating of benefits, no more pressure on people. Everybody gets his life-long basic income and chooses his own way.

To get you hooked on the subject, here are a few links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee

http://www.basicincome.org/bien/

http://binews.org/

http://www.globalincome.org/

Thanks for reading.

Photo of the Day

Life could be a beach and you spin the wheel!