Cheryl on the Web

Unlike the American conservatives, German conservatives love taxes. As luck would have it, guess who’s in charge of Germany at the moment - the conservatives. And not only do they love taxes, but they seem intent on eliminating what’s left of a middle class here in Germany. Have a look at this Wikipedia entry that shows how the tax brackets have changed in the last 30 years:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland) Whereas in 1975 the top tax bracket started at EUR 66,000 (converted from 130,000 German Mark) and taxed people at 56%, today the top tax bracket starts at EUR 52,152 and taxes people at 42%. And let me tell you, 66000 Euro was a lot more back then than it is now! Germany thinks it’s making real progression in the tax scale area: starting in 2007, it implemented a “rich people” tax that taxes income above EUR 250,000 per year at 45%. A whopping 3% more than the highest tax bracket. By way of comparison, have a look at the US tax brackets for 2007. There, the tax bracket just under the “rich people” bracket doesn’t start until about EUR 125,000.

I couldn’t figure out when we came to Germany why the supermarkets all compete on price and not on quality, atmosphere, or selection. But I’m beginning to form a theory that there is just not a significant middle class out there that is willing “en mass” to spend that additional amount for better selection or quality. And there’s no reason for that middle class to be ambitious about their salary either: a raise will probably just put them into a tax bracket 5-10% higher than the one they’re already in; it’s more advantageous to stay in a lower bracket and get tax cuts and subsidies.

The German economy is facing dropping consumption, and the government has promised .. that it will not lower taxes. Ever. Can you believe it? Of course, the people making the laws are all well above middle class - they’ve got no reason to change anything, they’re getting a break. I guess what I’m driving at is: there should be higher taxes in the top brackets, and the current top bracket here in Germany should be split up.

The German government’s media watchdog is criticizing the song competition “Germany Looks for the Superstar” (in other countries known as “Pop Idols” or “Idols”) as “a conscious portrayal” of “antisocial behavior” as “cool” and “promising” (Spiegel.de). According to the leader of the Commission for Youth Media Protection, the popular TV show chooses which candidates are shown to the public and how they are portrayed in such a way that a quota of humiliation and mortification is met. “It is everything but normal, to overrun a candidate with descriptors of the foulest category, to make him look ridiculous due to supposed outward deficits, and to portray this as socially preferable [behavior]”. A leftist member of the Parlament in Germany has called the show “disruptive to the life dreams and self-confidence of rejected candidates”.

Interesting, is my first standard reaction on reading this news article. The criticism isn’t without a basis. (more…)

I thought I’d heard it all when, on Thursday of this week, the CEO of the German postal service was taken in for questioning on a warrant for tax evasion: tax evasion to a sum of more than 10 million euro. The man, named Klaus Zumwinkel, had (until this week) a prestigious reputation in the business world, and he is (or was until this week) member of the Board of many large companies such as German Telecom, Lufthansa and Morgan Stanley. Apparently he grounded foundations in Liechtenstein and used them to hide money from German tax authorities. It has come as a huge shock to most of Germany that this man would commit tax fraud to such an extent, not to mention the resentment felt by many that someone with so much money would find it necessary to avoid paying taxes, so that the less well-to-do can pick up the slack.

Yesterday the story took a new turn worthy of consideration: it seems that the information which lead to the case against Zumwinkel (and against many others German tax “sinners”, not yet named) was turned over to the German government by a secret informant in Liechtenstein for the sum of between 4 and 5 million euro, paid by the German secret intelligence service. The information included memo’s, details of financial transactions, and Liechtenstein bank account numbers that were involved in the tax evasion schemes. Two large Liechtenstein banks are implicated by the information, and the press as well as the banks have yet to establish how the information was obtained by the informant. Tax evasion is not officially a crime in Liechtenstein; foundations incorporated there are allowed to benefit the founder; and Liechtenstein banks have a strong policy of secrecy and confidentiality - so the value of this information to German tax authorities and the embarrassment it presents to Liechtenstein should not be underestimated.

This entire saga brings to mind a number of fascinating moral questions. (more…)

It’s almost like I woke up today and someone said to me, Cheryl, wake up, it’s 2008! And I’d go, really, are you serious? When did that happen? Hold on a moment… I remember having a great Christmas with the US family and celebrating the year change in Toronto with Tim and two special friends .. but after that everything is a blur.

Ah, wait, it’s coming back to me: After returning to Germany at the end of the first week in January, it took a record 4 days to recover from the jet lag. Then I spent the next two weeks traveling on business, with a couple days in the weekend in between to do wash and grocery shopping. Then, on my way back from England at the end of the second week, I must have managed to contract the notorious London flu that’s going around up there, because exactly 12 hours later: wham, I’m laying down sick. As I write this two days later, I’m still laying down sick. And that concludes the first 5.5% of the year 2008!

I have to say, I had other plans for 2008 that will have to be realised in the remaining 94.5% of the time. (If only I could get rid of this flu and actually get something done; I hate laying around doing nothing, and I’m not ever usually sick this long so it is driving me crazy.) Tim and I want to do some interior re-organising, converting the old office into a bedroom and making a hobby room out of the bedroom. I’ve got to press ahead learning German, and then we’ve got great ambitions to exercise, submit our tax returns, and vacation to Italy. Not to mention I really want to stay in touch more with friends and family and try out some new recipes. And I have got to learn how to drive our manual shift car better when starting on an incline, sigh. We are also working to get ourselves better organised on the technology front; we recently managed to get ourselves set up on IMAP e-mail on the old XP computer, my Mac, and a traveling Vista laptop - that was a quite satisfying achievement. And I managed to export my Mac address book to the Vista laptop using Bluetooth (a file export didn’t work because the format wasn’t Windows-compatible), which was quite exciting.

So yeah, perhaps not the most ambitious resolutions for 2008 - but even so, the clock is already ticking and the progress meter is still at 1%…

Just when you thought you’d heard it all: a German politician proposed today that marriage not be forever - just for 7 years. After that, just like renewing your newspaper subscription, you could choose to renew your marriage subscription (each renewal would last 7 years) - or not. The purported reason for this arrangement is that it would reduce the number of divorces. (Talk about playing with statistics; if that wouldn’t be manipulation, then I don’t know what is.) Seems to me this could, in particular, motivate those who have trouble remembering their anniversary to be more faithful going forward; miss your 7th or your 14th anniversary (etc.) and before you know it, you’re a bachelor!

Thank goodness the German citizens aren’t any more enthusiastic about this proposal than I am. Comments made on the news were thinks like “Ridiculous” and “Not realistic”. And naturally, the Catholic church is against the concept as well.

Did I mention that the politician who proposed this is divorced? Twice?

The beginning of autumn - as signified by the annual NFL (US football) season start - also signifies my return to cozy indoor activities like blog-posting. I went through a period where I had to stop and ask myself, why am I spending my limited free time behind a computer? And why do I have such limited free time and what am I doing about it? Unable to answer the first question, I stopped posting to my blog until I was able to answer the second question.

It was during this blog-posting pause that I learned some valuable life lessons, as follows:

Every season has a sport, and right now it’s baseball season. This past week was the “all-star break”, where regular games are temporarily suspended and the best players from each team compete against each other. It seems, according to the announcers of the baseball game I’m watching now, that the all-star break can have all kinds of repercussions. Players get “out of rhythm”, their workout schedule is perhaps interrupted, it takes a bit of time to get “back in the groove”.

Give me a break - these are professional baseball players, not Little League sluggers. For once, let’s not start to make up reasons why the New York Mets pitcher just let the Cincinnati Reds score 4 runs in the first inning. For once, let’s not over-analyze poor performance by attributing it to a myriad of psychological reasons. The Mets pitcher has 4 wins straight and has a list of great stats - isn’t it just human not to be 100% consistent? No wonder kids grow up thinking that there’s something working against them when they have off days or something doesn’t go perfectly - they’re taught that there must be some sort of reason beyond their control or in their environment that could explain it.

I say, next time I’m tempted to think up an “all-star break” of an excuse for having a rough time at something, I’ll stop and remember I’m only human.