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Cake day: July 23rd, 2023

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  • I must confess, currently I am not even living on my own. A storm in 2019 destroyed the apartment my fiance and I lived in and as housing is insanely hard to find in Germany we fled literally into my old childhood room at my parents house and annexed the room of my brother too - he hasn’t needed it for like five years so who cares. Which is fine because I am working at my family business anyway and it is just a two minutes walk from home. Then the Pandemic hit and in 2023 my fiance and afterwards we realized how much money we had saved - because my parents only charge a miniscoul amount of money from us - we can literally buy a complete house, something we didn’t even think about five years ago.

    Another renter in the wrecked apartment building moved into a trailer park, or to be more precise, a container park - yes, they exist around here too but are not as Ultra-Low-Class as i have seen them in the US. It is okeyish and pretty cheap and you can literally get a container on short notice but usually they are so deep in the bonneys that you need to ride to work on a horse. I mean when the shit really hits the fan this seems a good emergency solution even in the US. I have been visiting some when I did work-study (*1) over there and while they were less nice than those around here I was surprised how nice the people around there were.

    (*1) I am mortician and embalmer and we picked up some deceased over there for funeral preparations. Which means we had very close interaction and looking into private stuff, literally helping the local police to recover papers and documents from their stuff.


  • You have no idea how hard it is to get rid of an unwilling renter as a landlord in Germany. In the event of rent arrears of two months’ rent or more, the landlord can terminate the lease without notice. Only then can he or she file an action for eviction which can take another two to four months. And if the tenant only pays the arrears for one month, the cycle starts all over again. I have seen people dragging this out for five years and when leaving the premise they left behind a battlefield. And absurdetly I am not even allowed to burn or sell their shit because it is still their properties so I have to store it, show it to a bailiff for evaluation, sell the few things worth anything, then store it for another two years and only then I am legally allowed to burn it.

    (And yes, my brother missed his rent a couple of times but always caught up after one or two months. Given how expensive rents in Germany are we are not talking about small sums. A 1960th 84m² apartment in a suburb is around €1500, a 1870th 70m² apartment in the centre of munich is around €3500 per month. The penthouse my brother lives in… just short of five digits. If he ever gets seriously sick he will go broke within two months and will take decades to pay of the debts. Again, he has no long term insurrances, no savings, nothing at all. And social wellfare and social health care of a couple of €100 will only bring him so far…)


  • Duchess of Waves@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldDont get it twisted.
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    10 months ago

    I disagree. You are NOT poor just because you end up without money at the months end.

    My brother is an perfect example. He earns A TON of cash every month. Nearly as much as I, my fiance, my Dad and Mum combined.

    And still he lives from payday to payday without any reserves. Because he can not handle money.

    He eats in restaurants at least ten times a week. At least twice in highest luxury restaurants. He has leased four different cars in three years, none less than €2000 per month. Lifes in an absurdetly huge penthouse. Buys his girl friend so much bullshit she gave me a €5.000 collier because she ran out of space and I drove her home after parties a couple of times. But still he asked Pa and me several times for fuel money at the end of the month.

    See, if he would live like I do he could live two years from one months earnings.

    So you think I am poor I guess?

    Nope. I own a huge plot of land. I am going to build my own house and I am talking about a nice big house made from stone at the gates of Munich where land is expensive and houses are even more expensive. I have paid generous amounts of pension insurance. If I would stop working in five years when I am 35 I would be a made girl and could live from my savings although on a low level.


  • I watched a documentary on DWTV about a similiar phenomena in Germany. There was a specific sort of bread, a cheap one, which stood fresh for two weeks if packed well. During the pandemic it suddenly stood fresh for NINE MONTHS. The finder of that bread was some sort of forensic specialist and because during the pandemic crime pretty much vanished he had too much time and explored that phenomena.

    So, did they put more chemicals into the bread to keep it more fresh?

    Actually, no. wholemeal bread stays due to the acid produced by the leavening during baking which is a natural process. Actually ALL bread stays in theory fresh “forever”.

    But. If it gets contaminated with fungus spores then those can slowly break up acids in the bread. Well, the final verdict was: Before the pandemic most bakers were so fucking dirty and contaminated that they pretty much only delivered fungus-contaminated bread. During the pandemic though the bakers were required to sanitize their work space and themselves a lot more thorough. And that made the bread free of fungus.

    The forensic specialist has kept another bread for over three years now. It is as fresh as the first day. No chemicals involved, just wrapped airtight into a plastic foil.


  • Recently I watched “The Man in the High Castle” and had a good laugh at the stupid story. Like Germany would have ever been able to conquer the US and put it under Fascism rule. No. When America goes fascist it will do so out of its own choice, by its own politicians, elected by their own population. Like my grandpa once said:

    *“The proletariat is so stupid that they vote their own executioner into power just for the vague hope of seeing their hated neighbour in front of them in the queue for the gallows.”

    “Das Proletariat ist so verblödet dass sie ihren eigenen Henker an die Macht wählen nur aus der vagen Hoffnung zu sehen wie ihr verhaßter Nachbar vor ihnen in der Schlange vorm Galgen steht.”*




  • The same is true within the EU countries. But as far as I know the US also demands “real time access without notice to the bakn or owner of the account” and that is something which simply isn’t allowed within the EU. An US citizen can in theory agree to this but then only a few banks even have the technical framework to offer such an access.

    Within the EU the police can also request banking data but need a signed court order and the data isn’t delivered in real time and by the bank itself and the customer gets informed afterwards.



  • Funny fact: As an US citizen it is INCREDIBLE HARD to open a foreign banking account. My local German bank simply rejects ALL US customers except when they want to invest a million or more. Because the paper work is HORRIBLE. I on the other hand can easily open a banking account in Finland, Spain, Great Britain or Greece. With some limitations even in Canada, Japan and Mexiko. For an US citizen: End Boss Level. Some even have fantastic service and interest rates.


  • And another thing were Europeans are better. Paying “fines” for overdrawing your banking account are illegal as are “fines” for failed withdrawals. We had them in the past for a while but the courts smashed that scheme to pieces. On the other hand, often banks do not even allow overdrawing. You hit Zero? End of the Line. Good Customers often get a credit up to some thousand Euro. I have specifically asked to limit my credit frame to €100. Because even while I don’t pay a fine for “overdrawing” I still pay absurde interest rates for overcharging - around 0,03% per day = 12,5% per year.

    Then there is another thing, two of the five largest banks for end users in Germany are “cooperative banks” which means they are not allowed to make a profit. They are practically owned by their customers. They aren’t exactly “the banks with the best interest rates” but overall a lot more relaxed than the competitors. On the other hand… they don’t accept every customer. Mostly small businesses and farmers.

    Also all banks are forced to cooperate a lot more than US banks which is why credit cards and their often absurd costs are mostly unknown around here.

    Edit, I just checked if my bank also offers to refill my daily account from my other accounts if it reaches Zero… in fact it DOES. For Free.





  • Just to let you know, if you use uBlock you can expect it to adapt to this new shenanigan pretty quickly. Also I think €120/year are ridiciously overpriced. Ask me about €30/year and I might consider it for a second.

    To be honest, I wouldn’t mind ads on Youtube if they were less per hour and less obnoxious. But no, every 12 second video now has an ad leading to it.

    Not to mention, if I would pay for every single Video service the usual 8-15€ I would pay like €1000 per year and THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

    Give me “pretty much everything” for €100 per year and we can talk. My offer stands.