May

Europaweit

“Europe-wide.” A controversial Arte documentary has drawn attention to the new EU water guideline the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier (of Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party) is about to issue in which local European government water projects will accept bids from all of Europe. Water activist Jean-Luc Touly warned the current plans for the guideline will make it difficult for public utilities to compete against profit-driven private utilities that are, he said, not primarily motivated by consumers’ best interests. 80% of the French water market has been privatized, the 2010 Arte documentary “Water Makes Money” claims to show instances of corruption in that French privatization and there was an increase in French water quality problems post-privatization, Touly said.

Around the world, many privatization contracts appear to have gone to subsidiaries of just a few big companies such as Bechtel (USA), Enron (USA, now spectacularly bankrupt), RWE (Germany) and Suez/Veolia (France). Opening privatization of city water utilities to Europe-wide bidding might encourage reductions in international competition among these providers.

(Oy ROPE a v eye t.)

5 days ago Short URL Comments

Arte/Atlanta/Competition/Economics/Michel Barnier/Privatization/Public-private partnerships/Union for a Popular Movement/Water utilities/Whistleblowing

Mar

“Kein Buch mit sieben Siegeln”

“No books with seven seals.” Slogan for a movement being shared and discussed at the 2013 Leipzig Book Fair that publishes simplified-language versions of adult books to entertain adults with reading difficulties and help them practice reading. As someone who learned to read German as an adult by forcing my way through children’s books, stopping to look up words on every page, I really appreciate this project! It should also open new markets for publishing companies, in and outside Germany.

(K eye n BOOCHH mit ZEE ben ZEEG ell n.)

62 days ago Short URL Comments

Books/Economics/Education/Leipzig Book Fair/Lifelong learning/Publishing/Reading/The Hobbit

Mar

Sparen nach Rasenmäher-Methode

“Lawnmower savings method,” i.e. the USA’s unusual choice to implement across-the-board spending cuts on itself. On Tuesday, 5 Mar 2013, Jeremy Keehn wrote in Harper’s week-in-review,

“President Barack Obama blamed the sequestration on the intransigence of House Republicans; House Republicans blamed Obama’s desire for new tax revenues in addition to budget cuts and Senate Democrats’ failure to pass a replacement bill; House Democrats blamed House Republicans for spitefulness and Obama for underestimating House Republicans’ spitefulness; Mitt Romney blamed Obama for poor leadership; and lexicographers blamed the prevalence in the media of the noun ‘sequester’ on the complexity of the more proper ‘sequestration.’”

(SHPAW wren nochh ROZ en MAY err met ODE eh.)

74 days ago Short URL Comments

Drama/Economics/Fiscal cliff/Gary Paulsen/Lawnmowers/Lexicographers/Sequestration/Unusual democracy/USA

Feb

Sperrminorität

“Blocking minority.” If, for example, Bersani’s (center-left) coalition gains control of Italy’s House but Berlusconi’s (center-right-f’tang-f’tang-biscuit-barrel) coalition wins enough votes in the Senate, Italy will be ungovernable because Bunga-Bunga will have the ability to block legislation. Hopefully, Bersani and Monti, perhaps even with television comedian Grillo’s help, will gain enough seats to call for another election, which will be blessed with better turnout. Spiegel-Online ventured to note that the new parliament might consider passing some electoral reforms before the new election, to stabilize the Italian government and make Italian politicians seem more reliable to voters.

(SHPERRRM ee nore ee tate.)

81 days ago Short URL Comments

Community/Discussion/Economics/Elections/Electoral reform/Euro/Europe/F'tang-F'tang/Forums/Italy/Life inside the bubble/Mario Monti/Miracles/Pier Luigi Bersani/Silvio Berlusconi/Wutbürger

Feb

Rattenfängerei

“Rat catchery,” how departing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti referred this week to billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi’s ridiculous campaign promise to pay voters’ real estate taxes out of his own pocket, hot air intended to encourage poorly-informed people to hitch their wagons not to a 21st-century democratic system but to a strong-seeming man no matter what ethics he displays.

(ROTTEN feng err EYE.)

83 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Elections/Italy/Mario Monti/Pied Piper/Rats/Silvio Berlusconi/Taxes

Jan

Zukunftspartei

“Future Party,” the German translation of former journalist Yair Lapid’s “There is a Future” centrist political party Yesh Atid that did well in Israel’s recent election because of voters’ concerns about economic issues.

(TSOO koonfts part eye.)

114 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Elections/Futures/Journalists/Parliamentary democracy/Parties/Yair Lapid/Yesh Atid

Jan

Das Himbeerreich

“The raspberry kingdom.” New play running with the same cast in two German theaters. It uses anonymized quotes collected by director Andres Veiel during a year of confidential interviews with bankers, brokers and board members.

Raspberries are considered elegant berries in Germany, and the title of the play refers to the great rock candy mountain bankers supposedly find themselves on when they retire.

(Doss HIMM beah reichh.)

122 days ago Short URL Comments

Andres Veiel/Art/Bank board members/Banks/Brokers/Economics/Raspberries/Reregulation/Sexism in the workplace/Theater

Jan

Grossspenden

“Large donations,” in this case business donations to political parties exceeding 50,000 euros. Private donations to Germany’s political parties are low by U.S. standards and have been decreasing since 2002, though they still spike in election years. Of the reported large donations of this type from 2002 until 2012, 45.2% went to Angela Merkel’s CDU, 21.4% interestingly went to the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the CSU (a state party that manages to hold power at the national level), 17.0% to the FDP and 10.8% to the SPD. The Greens and Leftists are calling for reforms mandating that private political donations go to individuals and not parties, and capping them at 100,000 euros.

(GROSS shpen den.)

135 days ago Short URL Comments

Bavaria/CSU/Economics/Elections/FDP/Green Party/Leftists (Die Linken)/Triple S

Jan

Fläzen

To loll, lounge, sprawl.

“‘You don’t become an investment banker because you expect security,’ said a UBS investment banker, who’s still working there. He fläzt himself in his chair in the visitors’ room at Finsbury Ave. 1, legs in a ‘wide stance,’ right arm casually draped over the back of the chair. Once upon a time he wanted to go into politics; now he just talks like a politician.“

(FLETT zen.)

136 days ago Short URL Comments

Banks/Economics/Finery/Matt Taibbi

Dec

Systemrelevante Banken

System-relevant banks, that are “too big to fail,” otherwise known as GSifi (global systemically important financial institutions). The head of the USA’s FDIC and a hohes Tier from the Bank of England published a proposal in the Financial Times on 10 Dec 2012 for reregulating system-relevant banks and making them less of a global economic risk. Under this proposal, if these huge banks got in trouble their top managers would be able to be fired by the responsible regulatory authorities, their shareholders would lose part or all of their investment, their creditors would not be able to collect all their unsecured debt, and rules would be applied to the company/ies at the top level of the holding hierarchy rather than the shuffle of subsidiaries. To promote national financial stability, healthy subsidiaries around the world would be preserved even if the top-level holding company is wound down. There are currently said to be 28 system-relevant banks in the world, of which 12 are in the UK and USA.

(Cis TEHM rellll ev ont eh BONK en.)

159 days ago Short URL Comments

Bank of England/Banks/Economics/FDIC/Financial Times/GSifi/Martin Gruenberg/Paul Tucker/Reregulation/Süddeutsche Zeitung/System relevance

Dec

Dividendenstripping

“Dividend stripping.” A tax avoidance scheme the HypoVereinsBank is accused of, wherein they allegedly transferred customers’ stocks back and forth between German and foreign banks until it was unclear whether the Kapitalertragssteuer had been paid and then claimed more capital gains tax credits than were owed. Reuters and the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that a single Frankfurt investor working with HVB and other banks was told he owed 124 million euros in tax for 2006–08 after the IRS-equivalent refused to accept his capital gains tax break from the scheme; he has been fighting in court since 2011 to get HVB to pay the tax bill. HVB and this investor split the profits 65% HVB, 35% investor. Wikipedia says dividend stripping lost its tax-law basis in 2000, Spiegel says it hasn’t been accepted by German tax authorities since 2007, and Süddeutsche Zeitung says since 2012.

Weird story about the HypoVereinsBank in Spiegel-Online on 30 Nov 2012: A guy accused his ex-wife and other HVB employees of large-scale tax avoidance schemes that moved money to Switzerland, was declared non compos mentis by the Bavarian justice system and has been locked up in a mental institution ever since (2006). The man probably was violent, but he may have been correct about the tax avoidance. He cited names and numbers when he blew the whistle to the Bavarian tax authority, but a judge who was not involved in that case called the tax office and told them not to investigate the bank because the whistleblower was crazy. The institutionalized whistleblower’s case has now been re-opened.

The Frankfurt district attorney’s HVB razzia last week found a trail leading to “a Swiss private bank.” Süddeutsche Zeitung says it is thought that Swiss banks will be a very fruitful place to investigate this German tax scandal. Deutsche Bank and UBS are now implicated as well.

(Dee veed END en shtrrrip pink.)

Nov

Prekariat

Precariat. In sociology and economics, a nonhomogenous social group living in an insecure, precarious, situation, i.e. without job security.

(Prey CAR ee ott.)

190 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Sociology

Nov

Sperrkonto

A blocked or frozen account. Before the troika’s report, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) suggested that rather than wait for the troika’s results Germany make its next tranche payment of aid to Greece anyway, putting it in a frozen account that will automatically pay off certain obligations but not be completely available, somehow. In its 17 Oct 2012 article, Spiegel-Online indicated that the French government too was getting tired of having to deal every few months with problems from Athens. A blocked account similar to the proposed one is currently in use, but it is under the auspices of the Greek finance agency. The new blocked account would be at an institution inaccessible to the Greek government. Spiegel-Online went on to report that additional proposals included giving the Greek minister of finance more powers to strengthen his position versus the other cabinet ministers, bringing in more bureaucrats from other countries to provide development aid in Greece, having Greece issue more “T-bills” and asking or demanding forgiveness of certain debt types.

(SHPARE con toe.)

194 days ago Short URL Comments

CDU/Economics/Greece/Troika/Wolfgang Schäuble

Nov

Schwarze Null

“The black zero,” meaning a balanced budget. The federal government is saying it’s possible Germany may manage to have a budget with no deficit spending as early as 2014, although this may not be as true after the upcoming German election.

(SHVORTS eh NOOL.)

196 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Elections/Taxes

Sep

Hochgeschwindigkeitshandel

“High-speed trading.” On 25 Sept. 2012 the German social democrat party SPD (the opposition to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU + FDP coalition) announced their new proposed financial platform of increasing banking regulation, splitting “universal” banks into a business bank and an investment bank, creating an FDIC-type emergency fund with the banks’ own money to save troubled banks, capping mortgage debt at 80% of the unit’s value and limiting high-speed stock trading. One day later, on 26 Sept., Germany’s financial minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) announced that the German government wants to limit high-speed stock trading.

ZDF heute journal said the government was now calling for the following: registration of high-speed traders, disclosure of computer code if a problem occurs and higher fees after too many “fake attacks” in which high-speed traders pretend to buy a stock in order to drive up the price, then rapidly cancel the larger purchase and sell what they were actually holding at the new higher price.

Respect for Wolfgang Schäuble’s quietly reasoned-sounding explanations. Simple, straightforward, highly credible-sounding. He does a great job with them. He’s also quite clever, distracting me from banking reregulation by seizing on this high-speed trading point.

According to tagesschau.de, Schäuble is calling for “mandatory licensing for high-speed traders. Transparency that enables the supervisory authority to identify abuses faster. And the ability for the stock market supervisory authority to, when bad developments are identified in the market, to immediately stop trading.” On 26 Sept. his political opponent in the SPD responded that this doesn’t go far enough and called not only for licensing of trading firms but also of trading algorithms. Germany’s Green Party said the simplest way to handle this would be to forbid high-speed trades, and furthermore that the government is limiting itself to too much of an observing, witness, role, rather than regulating. And the techie German Pirate Party said…?

(HOKE geh SHVIN dig kites hon dell.)

232 days ago Short URL Comments

Banks/CDU/Economics/Financial regulation/German Pirate Party/Green Party/High-speed trading/Reregulation/SPD/Wolfgang Schäuble

Sep

Goldesel

“Gold donkey,” the German equivalent of a cash cow.

(GOLD eh zel.)

245 days ago Short URL Comments

Cows/Donkeys/Economics/Gold

Aug

Pfründner

Prebendary, a type of canon in the Catholic or Anglican church. Now used in German to mean someone who receives a stipend without having to work for it. A sinecure holder.

(FRIEND ner.)

265 days ago Short URL Comments

Bureaucracy/Economics/History

Aug

Leipziger Strombörse

The European Electricity Exchange runs platforms for trading in many power-related markets. It is located in Leipzig and was created by a fusion of Leipzig’s LPX and Frankfurt/Main’s EEX in 2002.

A study commissioned by Germany’s Green Party has announced that while for years now electricity prices have been steadily falling on the EEX, electricity prices have been steadily rising for Germany’s small private consumers. Cost reductions have not been passed along to private consumers and cost increases have. German consumers are paying an estimated EUR 0.02/kilowatt hour too much, totalling three billion euros this year. High-volume customers, such as industrial clients, have meanwhile negotiated lower electricity prices with the utilities and lower environmental contributions with the government. The Bundesnetzagentur has now calculated e.g. that Germany’s biggest electricity customers consume 18% of its electricity but pay only 0.3% of the alternative energy law costs.

Responding to the report, the power companies blamed the flawed system, which they say is politicians’ fault. Also, they say, high prices are caused by taxes and environmental contributions.

ZDF heute journal reports that small private consumers aren’t switching electricity providers enough to create a sense of market competition.

266 days ago Short URL Comments

Bundesnetzagentur/Bureaucracy/Economics/EEX/Electricity/Green Party/LPX

Aug

Grössenwahn

“Size craziness.” Such as the overdimensioned construction projects Valencia’s politicians built with money the Spanish region didn’t have.

(GRUE senn VON.)

288 days ago Short URL Comments

Architecture/Debt/Economics/Insanity/Spain

Aug

Vermögensvernichtungswaffe

“Wealth destruction weapon.” Criticism of a new plan to have the ESM buy up debt from struggling EU countries and, if needs must, exchange that paper for new euros from the European Central Bank. Some fear this will overeliminate incentives for struggling countries’ politicians to learn to stop overspending. And of course German economists think inflation might result.

(Fer MÖ genz fer NICK toongz voff eh.)

290 days ago Short URL Comments

ECB/Economics/ESM/LongCompoundWords

Jul

Zwangsanleihe

“Compulsory loan.” Idea under discussion of forcing German taxpayers who possess EUR 250,000 or more to loan money to the state. If the state’s economy then prospers, the bond would be paid back, perhaps even with interest. 8% of German adults would qualify for this, according to current stats.

(TSVONG z on lie eh.)

297 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Pinkos

Jul

Vetternwirtschaft

“Cousins economy.” Nepotism.

(FETT er n virt shoft.)

298 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Economics/Nepotism/Rogues

Jul

Informationswirtschaft

“Information economy.” An environment in which information is a kind of currency.

(In form ah TSEE OWNS virt shoft.)

299 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/Information

Jul

Unterstützungsanzahlung

“Support payment,” “support installment payment.” At least two “high animals” at FIFA received bribe payments totalling 11 million euros, part of a bribe of 100 million euros given to FIFA by a media company in the 1990’s. Sepp Blatter knew about it. At the time, this was not illegal in Switzerland, but it is illegal now. The two known officials (a guy and his son-in-law) were prosecuted and found technically innocent. FIFA then made a seven-figure “support payment” “to keep the files in the prosecution’s filing cabinet,” which is why we’re only finding out about this now, thanks to journalist Jean François Tanda’s successful lawsuit to obtain access to the court files.

(Oon ter sh TOOTS oongs on tsoll oong.)

306 days ago Short URL Comments

Corruption/Economics/FIFA/Jean François Tanda/Sepp Blatter/Soccer/Switzerland

May

von der Substanz leben

“Living off the substance.” Consuming the principle rather than the interest. Eating the seeds for next year’s crop.

(Fon der soob STONTS lay ben.)

370 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics

May

besitzbelastet

Burdened by property or ownership. “What you have, has you.”

(Beh ZITS buh lost ett.)

371 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics

May

Finanzmarktstabilisierungsanstalt

“Financial market stabilization institution.” From the SoFFin acronym, which stands for Sonderfonds Finanzmarktstabilisierung Finanzmarktstabilisierungsanstalt.

(Fee NONTS mark t shtah beel ee zeer oongs ON shtoll t.)

372 days ago Short URL Comments

Economics/LongCompoundWords

May

Markttransparenzstelle

The new “Market Transparency Office,” under the auspices of the German Federal Cartell Authority. The MTO is intended to gather and evaluate data from electricity companies and especially gas stations to ensure there is no price fixing. These data will not be shared with the public. It is not clear whether this new office will be functional or grandstanding.

(MARKED trons par ENTS shtell ah.)

373 days ago Short URL Comments

Bundeskartellamt/Bureaucracy/Economics/Elections/Electricity/Gas stations/LongCompoundWords/Transparency/Utilities