In principle I stand for the
Bündnis 90/Grüne Program
and the local Grüne Leipzig, in particular for human, women�s and minority rights, freedom of the press, environmental protection, ecological agriculture, cultural events and social justice.
What I especially want to change or emphasize in Leipzig, Saxony and Germany: (Sitting in Saxony�s provincial legislature with one vote of 120, a single legislator can hardly change anything but he/she is listened to more carefully.)
I like Saxony and Leipzig, but . . . a lot ought to be better:
1. There are not enough teachers to teach full schedules at schools. We have been complaining about this for years,
but the problem just gets worse, because new appointments do not keep pace with retirees. The salaries are below those of other provinces and
the CDU government is stingy when it comes to university appointments too. Many graduating teachers leave for other provinces. Others do not even
work towards an education degree for the lack of financial support for the course of study.
The government of Saxony has plumed itself for over a decade with a claim of standing for good education.
How true this is can be judged by the 10 to 25 % cancelled class hours in that period.
The right vocabulary for this can be found more quickly in the poenal code than in the school books; cancelled classes seem like short-changing youth to me.
For the money needed to pay the missing teachers has been flowing in less important channels.
Preschool education is not only good for letting parents take a job, but also for teaching children important skills early on.
What they learn earlier, they can can use earlier to learn more.
Before starting school, my children could all read an English vocabulary of more than 500 words and to add, subtract, multiply and divide 3 digit numbers:
now they have become a Dr. med.; a M.S. of electronic engineering, a state attorney, an economist and a barely 16 year old with the 11 grade nearly behind him,
bent on becoming a chemist and already playing in the 2nd baseball league in Germany, not to mention piano skills.
Die Überfälligkeit von Schulsanierungen und das Sportprogramm an den Schulen sind zwei Vögel von zwei anderen Gefiedern und werden unten nach dringenderen Problemen besprochen.
2. Nor are there enough police to solve crimes. We have been complaining about this as well for years, because the new appointments do not keep pace with the retirees either.
The police training program should have been better susidized for the last ten ten years.
And yet this Government of Saxony plumes itself as protector of law and order: can the failure to appoint enough qualified police officers be deemed aiding and abetting the unsolved crimes?
Not all, although some, but which! It is getting as bad as in France, where the suicide rate of over overworked police now averages one every 4 days.
Automatic detection of License tags on motorways and video cameras at key points may smack a bit of police state,
but it allows a smaller number of police to be our friends and helpers in need, as more crimes can be solved, and the data can often prove a suspect�s innocence.
The abuse of power is a danger that grows with its extent and is a reason for controlling it, but not a reason for not using new technologies.
Better methods of securing evidence make better criminologists.
3. Renewable Energy.
The Saxon building code was written in the last millenium and tends to prevent the changeover to renewable energy instead of promoting it.
Our dutiful planning officials and architects work rather conscientiously, if measures for renewable energy are not prescribed by law,
you cannot expect our exacting building authorities to require more facilities for producing renewable energy, if it is not required by law.
The law has to be changed to require more RE applilication.
Fathers for Future know that not just school strikes on fridays are needed here but hard work every day on providing sufficient renewable energy,
if we want to turn off the atomic and fossil fuel power plants.
Despite all procrastination efforts to keep coal power viable the industry is going the way of the dinosaurs, as the Co2 certificates needed for its continuance make coal power too expensive to compete with gas power. So a rapid expansion of wind and solar power is absolutely imperative to take up the slack sooner. Although coal power plants have been shut down for a good part of 2019 the government is planning to grant compensation to the coal power sector rather than liquidating the entire branch. That money should be invested in photovoltaic, biogas and wind energy production instead.
The government of Saxony is letting a crash of our power supply catch us off guard, as they have failed to present a plan for ending dependence on coal power plants.
For the cost of coal power is higher than power from gas, photovoltaic and or wind energy. The insolvency of coal power plants is only a matter of months,
after which they can only be kept running at the expense of lost subsidies. On the other hand putting photovoltaic on all the rooves without them now would
produce enough power to replace the coal power plants. The costs would be covered by the power produced over a period of ten years.
Of course, for seasonal and daily power fluctuation a mix with power from large and micro wind power systems and accumulators would be needed.
A plan for transition must set target values for how many square meters of roof are to be covered every year in which cities.
4. Nor do the building code and zoning regulations promote affordable housing near places of work,
which makes ever more people have to spend more time commuting between home and work leaving them less time to raise a family.
5. The transition to E-mobility and storing wind and solar energy bring new problems: accumulators for E-cars limit their range.
With too many E-cars plugged in for a charge at the same time the power mains could blow.
Using hydrogen generators as alternative energy storage for cars that run on hydrogen instead of gasoline or diesel has been
a rather neglected development. How well the German automobile industry can be trusted to carry out these developments has been
evidenced by their unscrupulous Dieselgate activities. The trustworthyness of CSU contolled Ministry Transpotation in watching over developments
is best measured by their failure to act against the motor industry�s trick software and require an adequate hardware solution for
achieving emissions standards. The money spent on developing fraudulent software ought to have been spent on reliable hardware.
6. No increase of the gasoline and diesel tax: it would hardly persuade drivers to buy an E-car. Only big earners would make their annual car change earlier.
Only a tax on combustion engines without VAT deduction would have a noticeable effect. Much better would be an eight or nine digit fine for car producers
who do not offer H2 or E exchange motors for all the dirty cars sold in the last 10 years within a grace period.
That would be the right response to all their tricks and dodging in the CDU/CSU Era.
A tax on kerosine is, however, adviseable, specifically to the amount that would make travel by rail competitive in cost to that of traveling by air.
A tanking requirement without deduction of VAT for flights abroad seems to be required for the same reasons in order to better control this source of CO2 emissions.
7. The European Union: Our emissions standards and many other consumer protection laws would not exist without the European Union: vote for our Green representatives!
Only a strong EU can can fight the causes for refugees fleeing the countries of Asia and Africa!
Is a party against the EU that is also finced by mysterious foreign donations to be suspected of treason or not?
The EU has brought us 70 years of peace and thriving economy.
The Euro reduces the costs of trading between EU member States, because bank fees are lower and there is no risk of currency fluctuations.
Only a stong EU can counter the causes driving refugees from the countries in Africa and Asia making peace there and stimulation their economies to give them a positive outlook on life!
8. Plastics need to be recycled. For plastics that cannot be recycled for the same kind of use new uses have to be found, possibly as supporting and insulating cores for a kind of Lego block for building houses where the outside of the block is a brick or concrete layer that is entirely fire resistant and the interior has standard channels for wiring, water and drain pipes.
9. The Minister of Transportation�s plan to reduce the VAT on train tickets from 19 % to 7 % is good, but making them VAT free is better. After all we want to transport more people by electrically powered trains and fewer by motor traffic on the roads with all the emissions. And German Rail would have the money needed for all the investments needed to fulfill their task.
10. Backlog of school building repairs: At the end of last year we talked about this acute problem in Leipzig`s schools and our Katharina Krefft on the City Council with the support of the rest of the Green fraction on the City Council voted in a double budget for 2019/20 with the consent of all other parties, that provided sufficient fund for ending this neglect. So the political work has been done. Now it is up to the city administration to manage "only" the tickelish tasks of finding enough construction firms for doing the work and juggling the class schedules of the overfilled schools so that the men can mak the noise of their work.
11. The most important characteristic and goal of good breeding is promoting self confidence in children - an entirely subjective feeling with no objective characteristics.
If children gain this feeling with positive accomplishments, they do not resort so quickly to bullying, graqfiti, fighting, destroying property, drugs and alcohol,
because they recognize they have better and more rewarding things to do with their time;
for the latter evils compensate an inferiority complex with feelings of abnormal self confidence.
School sports programm: Anyone lucky enough to have spent an exchange year at a school in the USA has surely noticed a phenomenon
that you just cannot see here in Germany. Most all of the campus style schools have more sports facilities than a city of 100,000 people in Germany.
And every schools sponsors several teams in very many kinds of sports with well attended school games playing against other schools. It is called school spirit in the USA.
This is something worth emulating for the benefits of developing self confidence, team work skills, physical development and mutual recognition and respect in the student body.
To this purpose I propose to change Saxony�s education program to include an alternative to the regular sport instruction:
specifically allowing the choice of joining a school team in a kind of sport with 9 or more players on the field in games, where a grade of 3 or better is guaranteed on report cards for regular participation.
The schools should field teams in several sports so that as many pupils as possible have a chance to develop their self confidence, their team work skills, their physical condition and
recognition in the student body. While sports of individual competition are good for the former two of these advantages, the sports with larger teams also develop the latter two better.
Hence the emphasis on sports like soccer, American football, rugby, baseball, crickett, field hockey lacross etc.
Increasing child obesity shows that health considerations require a program of this kind, best with daily training for an hour or more.
12. Music instruction in the schools is a further way to improve personality development. The current offers as extracurricular activities are rather good.
But not all children who should actually take advantage of them, because their participation is not graded and is thus deemed secondary by parents.
Cost is also a factor for low income families, while petitioning for a subsidy at the welfare office means spending another unpaid morning in line.
However, experiencing successful trraining in a school chorus or marching band dynamizes a child for life and broadens his circle of friends.
Every high school in America has both a chorus and a marching band. A lack of them fosters oddballs, lone wolves and bullying.
There are theater groups at every high school in America, to some extent in Germany too. But with more recognition of such activities
there would be more active participation in them and a broadfer education of our youth.
At present our overburdened faculties can only give out a gasp and groan to such ideas, but these ideas have to go hand in hand with strengthing their ranks.
13. Hurrah, the federal government finally did something to end the exploitation of package deliverers. What about the exploitation in all part time jobs? Even if the hourly wage is over the minimum pay level, people are often involved who are effectively unemployed and cannot pay anything for their social security. The entire system of job training and higher education consists significantly of part time teachers with contracts limited to one semester and 10 hours or less per week without social insurance. No one can live on that and pay for old age security and health insurance too. 50 years ago this was not allowed, then the limit for employment free of social insurance charges was raised again and again, certainly not at the request of those employed, but because the state was too stingy again to pay decent wages for qualified teachers.
In all events, give your local Green candidate your first ticket vote even if you prefer me or someone else for the second vote.
The population shift from rural areas to cities has gone on for centuries, but in the last few decades it has become so rapid that there is a virtual drain of village populations and total loss of property value. This is because not enough is done to support new business there. Subsidizing biogas production would simultaneously create more jobs there, produce more renewable energy and reduce the Nitrate levels in ground water. Such systems take place where photovoltaic modules can be mounted on the roof. and where there is energy other production lines can be run and jobs created. Is the goverenment in Dresden sleeping? He who seeketh not, findeth not. Was it noth the CDU government in Berlin that cancelled subsidies for biogas production?
Actually it ought to be booming in rural areas, not a land of undergrowth where Sleeping Beauty lies forever unawaken.
After biogas production there is a mass of high nitrate content which is surely capable of further biochemical use: a task for the chemists.
15. An effective rent stopper
Rising rental rates please the landlords and realtors. For the average consumer they are often a heavy cross to bear. When the rent in the city centers gets too expensive for the earner of wages under 12 Euros per hour who works to pay, he is damned to spend the rest of his working life commuting daily from out in the country to work and home again. This means up to 10 hours per week less time for the family and leisure, not to mention considerable transport costs. This is one reason for the low birth rate. it is also the driving power behind the public rage that has brought the sudden success of the AfD.
Attempts to limit rent increases cannot return us to social peace and would be but a drop of water on a red hot iron. Far more an encompassing regulation should be found to settle the low wage recipient in his own safe and snazzy 4 walls near his place of work as the cornerstone of his old age security. The low wage earners make up 25 % of the population and those with a little more chicken feed than the poverty range 25 % more. Relatively few of the population living in rented housing are able to save enough in the course of 20 years of work to make a downpayment for the purchase of a flat or house, and then nowhere near where they work. Instead of the dream of their own four walls they are actually buying their place on the treadmill for 20 years of mortgage payments. And heaven forbid that their employer goes broke: Then everything is gone and in vain.
To return to social peace, rental law has to be essentially changed to rent/purchase law with exceptions only for new construction, flats rented at or near rates for social housing, areas of low population and houses with about 5 flats, in which the landlord occupies one unit himself.
The Civil Code on real estate law ought to be changed to better reflect the social commitment of land.
It is an injustice that the rent subsidies and BfW loan grants that were adopted after the war to promote new housing and reconstruction projects and effectively paid for practically all of these investments should now be capitalized on by private owners to raise rents again and again over decades and ultimately throw people out onto the streets who have lived there for decades. It is an injustice that only the good earners in need of tax deductions should be snapping up all the refurbished apartments under monument protection provisions and driving up the purchase and rental prices. In comparison with the tax savings the rent from such purchases is insignificant, and yet rent subsidies are being paid and paid, while the tenants are paying the taxes. Such a transfer of most housing to a small fraction of the population could not bring anything good in the longterm.
The Pegida demonstrations etc. over the last several months and the AfD gains at the ballot box show that many citizens who had been chronic non-voters for decades do not want to put up with being the stepchildren of the nation any longer. In many respects the surfs and slaves of days of yore were better off: at least they had certain work and a home. Now the poor are too often the victims of rationalisation and company bankruptcies.
Agenda 2010 and the Riester nonsense brought a catastrophe for the low wage earner. In 1994 my pension expectation was higher than what I got at retirement in 2005 despite years of pension insurance payment in the mean time. Then the tax reform ten years ago subjected half of that subsistance pension subject to 25 % income tax.
Rentsubsidies have to be change to make housing near places of work affordable and benfit rent/purchase agreements, because the costs of maintaining streets and public tranportation rise with the number of people who have to travel long distances to work and back home every day.
A progressive property tax ought to be introduced that is not to be paid by the tenant as an effektive rent stopper. No increased tax for rents at the social rent level, but higher for every Euro per square meter more. These tax revenues can be used to subsidize rent/purchase agreements.
Realtors force rent prices up by leaving housing units vacant and keeping quiet about the rent paid by the former tenant. To eliminate such tactics a co-operative ought to be formed between the rent subsidy office, the citizen registration office, the land register, the property tax office and the incomtax offices to supervize rented housing, rent out vacant housing or repectively subject to rent/purchase agreement. This co-operative should decide in the first instance in cases of differences of opinion between landlords and tenants to reduce costs and relieve the courts and delays. This co-operative should also be responsible for trading and transfering tenants� rights from rent/purchase agreements so that moving in case of a job or retirement etc. is necessary. Only rent agreements registered with this co-operative would be valid. The acquisition of housing under rent/purchase agreements is to serve as old age security and free of any liens and distraint measures so that there are no negative effects from hire and fire employment policies.
How to continue stimulation of the building activities after initiating such a rent/purchase regulation is to be written on a different page. As indicated above new and refurbished housing have to be treated differently with respect to rent subsidies, land taxes and periods of rent/purchase agreement. Another possibility is relieving Employers by shifting part of the social insurance costs into the VAT calculation and reducing the state VAT revenues as a result of the progressive land tax. Within this structure the work of the German Pension Insurance should be expanded to include accumulation of reserves to be invested in housing loans, where the social need is more important than the income for granting such loans. This is the way to get the small earner into his own 4 walls without resorting to massive expropriations.
16. German rail owns vast areas of railroad tracks near the train stations in Leipzig and Dresden (and of course in all other cities) that could built over with apartment or terraced housing complexes with photovoltaic and micro wind power unit on their rooves and garden areas. Then the areas would be used 100 % for rail traffic as before, 100 % for housing or leisure, and 100 % for renewable energie and CO2 conversion. The rising commuter statistics would be reduced, as would the need for more mobility infrastructure.
German rail would not have to invest so much to improve services and get more power suppliers. But if German rail should let these areas be exploited for commercial use, it would create more jobs in central areas, increase the number of commuters and the need for more investment: that would be as naive as business planning can get.
To secure these areas for sensible city planning with housing ner places of work, optimized energy production and green areas, a federal law should be passed reducing German Rails rights to servitudes and empowering cities with the planning and distribution of housing units to persons with an interest in their acquisition as described here.
The unique situation of building over rails with a minimum of traffic interruption will require the development of equipment on rail cars that have a high degree of automation for boring piles, Formen and moving material along the rails. But the same circumstances will be encountered in 100 cities, so the costs can be kept relatively low.
17. In Leipzig the Ring (and broader streets in other cities) could also be built over for developing safer walks and cycling paths and central housing with photovoltaic and micro wind power units on the rooves as well as green areas. This would reduce traffic noise besides otheer advantages. But the Ring is rather beautiful as it is, so high aesthetic standards would have to apply. The street and tram tracks would have to be laid 4 to 5 m lower, which makes it more expensive and a longterm development, as it would have to be co-ordinated with other infrastruture renewal projects. Completion would come in several steps over some 20 years, if the planning were to be started now. Rail and bus connections are very important, because they are often needed for schooling and training. Without public transportation more CO2 emissions are unavoidable.
18. The German Army: The government ended 2018 with extensive reports on how many tanks, ships and airplanes were not combat ready and in dire need of repair and how many soldiers were still needed to man them. The figures were intended to have the defense budget beefed up, but they only told me that the Defense Department (that has been run by the CDU/CSU since the "fabulous unDr. von und zu Gutenberg" came into and was promptly run out of office with nothing but scandals ever since) has only bummed on the job and done nothing to give us a credible defense. No house wife could do a worse job, any house wife could probably do it better. (No insult is meant to house wives, by the way.)
19. Disarmament: There are groups suggesting unilateral disarmament. No matter how much I distain war and weapons of mass distruction,
this idea seems like telling women they can go naked in the streets, because rape is a crime punishable by law.
With the invasion of a nation on the border of the EU and the countless other wars being conducted elsewhere in the world we cannot go without a credible and non-provocative defense.
But what is a credible and non-provocative defense?
In my dissertation that was sent to the 30 universities in the Fed. Rep. of Germany in 1973 and may still be available there,
I had to deal with the concepts defensive and aggressive wars
and define the difference between aggressive and defensive weapons, because in those days there was a lot of propaganda throwing such words about
without any scholar having bothered to define them (as far as I could see after rumaging through a lot of books).
The definition was fairly easy to arrive at after starting with the concept of primary and secondary military targets on the one hand
and civilian targets and non combatants on the other.
If the effects of a weapon can be concentrated on military target it is a defensive weapon (= you can build them, own them and use them for your defense).
If the weapon acts over a greater area and generally effects civilian targets as well as miltary targets it is an aggressive weapon
(= using them is generally aggression, building and owning implies you would use them in a war and commit an aggression.)
So what does this mean for planning our defense?
Weapons of mass distruction, i.e. nuclear bombs, poisonous gases and biological weapons act indiscriminantly over greater areas
and generally kill civilians and non-combatants,
so building and possesing them is provocative and hence aggressive, hence get rid of them if you want a non-provacative defense.
But then it is like being defenseless, unless you have weapons that can knock out the delivery systems for WMD�s early enough to save your civilians.
You have to have weapons that can be targeted on all military targets and in particular on your enemy�s weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,
then you have a credible defense that cannot be deemed provocative.
This brings us to the nagging question of whether being in an alliance with nations that stock WMD�s as their idea of a credible defense is provocative.
Here we leave the realm logic and move into the situation of the school boy whose way to school goes unavoidably along a street with a gang of roughians on each side
that both think "If you are not with us you are against us!"
In the fashion he is so infamous for, Trump hit the nail right on the thumb finally by suggesting the import of American natural Gas instead of the pipeline from Russia:
a well deserved sanction it would be.
20. The 4 track health care system is inefficient and in need of reform. Big salry earners pay insurance premiums on a limited amount of their salary and private coverage for extras. or choose private insurance for everything. Selfemployed can get relatively expensive coverage from the public health care system and can get privat coverage for the extras. Public officials get a percentage of any medical costs refunded and can get privately overinsured for the rest making it profitable to be sick. Consolidation of the system would bring relief for the public hand, and ending the limit on salaries for calculating premiums would allow allow lowering insurance rates and relieve employers, other employees and the low income self employed.
21. The end of the draft was greeted widely, because for many it collided with the education plans. On the other hand an Army reserve program with duty during the semester breaks would both beef up the armed forces with qualified people and bring the right vacation job for many students for financing their course of study.
23. Eliminating the limit of the amount of wages and salaries subject to social insurance would allow the pension insurance to form reserves in the form of loans for social housing or houses for the low income bracket.
24. Raising VAT on meat is inacceptable. The animal CO2 emissions are part of the species protection
that we want to achieve by reversing global warming. I respect the right of others to
vegatarian nutrition, but this idea violates the right of those who want
a portion of meat in their diet, to whom I count myself. Whether a human diet should contain meat is disputed.
And there are genetic differences among humans that could lead to different amounts of meat in the human diet for different people and at various ages.
Rejecting a higher tax on meat does not, however, suggest that mass production methods are in any way acceptable.
Tortuously penning in of animals on a small space and producing excessive amounts of manure with nitrates in it that contaminates the groundwater are problems,
for which more effective solutions have to be found.
To what extent the human diet ought to include meat is disputed. And there are genetic differences in humans that lead to recommending different amount of meat for different people and at various ages.
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But the rejection of a higher tax on meat ist not to be understood as condoning mass animal husbandry.
Torturously kaaping too many animals in small stalls and producing too much manure containing more nitrates than the soil can absorb without contaminating the ground water
are problems that have that have to be solved by a better solution.
Besides, mass animal husbandry is only one link in an evil chain of ecological mismanagement:
the rainforests that store CO2 safely are being savagely deforested to make way for fields for growing soya beans, which are used as feed for mass animal husbandry.
The people in Germany consume the better cuts of cheap meat excessively, get overweight and suffer from gout, diabetes and other diseases cause by the latter.
The inferior cuts of meat are exported to Africa where the cheap food drives chicken farmers out of business and forces them to venture a trek across the Sahara desert in search of work in Europe.
So a tariff barrior has to be raised against soya beans to break this chain: so high that it limits the import of soya beans and mass animal husbandry as well as unleashing vast amounts of nitrates on the fields.
In the case of Brasil a total import stop should be considered to stop the deforestation of the rainforest. Of course, this has to be done at the EU level.
Then the soya beans would be exported to where animals are dying and humans with them, and the chain of evil would be broken.
Subsidizing Biogas production again would keep excessive manure quantities from being put on the fields and causing excessive nitrates to get into the groundwater.
Then exercise your fourth vote by getting your friends to read this too!
We acquired a lot in 04509 Krostitz-Zschölkau in March 2018 and work began.
First to go up was the garden house, 2.5 m by 3 m with an overhanging roof 3.26 m by 4.5 m slanted 12 degrees to the south: just fine for 8 photovoltaic modules. But first the drain pipe, water pipe and the the cable for the connection to the power mains had to be laid. Now any normal builder would have called in a contractor to dig the 23 meter trench and everything would have been ready for mounting the modules before June.
But yours truly had 45 years of deskjob sinning behind him and enough flab, blood sugar etc. to show for it. Now being a doctor of law and the son as well as grandson of a doctor of medicine, these sins resulted in a self imposed sentence to hard labor under doctors` orders. Just the thing to kill the kilos. Not all gone yet, but going, going ...!
By the end of October '18 the pipes and cables were in, the modules and a micro windpower unit ordered and paid for as well as a housing for the mains connection in place and the electrician invited. The internal wiring in the garden house delayed things though until after the beginning of winter, and the goose that laid the golden eggs was busied with other things until March. But then it was finally time for the modules to be securely mounted on the roof. Most important the Dr. Jur. serving the sentence to hard labor lost 6 kg and got a lot fitter.
On 2nd April 2019 we began feeding electric power into the the main power network and had delivered 313 kWh of power on 3rd May, nearly 10 kWH per day. Then two more panels were added and total power production after using some for rototiller, lawnmower, hacker and drill had reached 1600 by the end of July. despite using a few hours of power for the electric rotor tiller. From November till the end of February power production will be noticeably less
The micro windpower unit will be ready for use in May. This is rated for up to 1 kW and will somewhat equalize power delivery over the seasons and at night. Better figures will be available as we near a full year of operation.
The micro wind turbine is waiting for a special self designed mast raising unit with a pulley device, that will raise to a height of 9 meters after the end of August.
The main house will have a slightly steeper roof of 15 degrees and space for 75 photovoltaic modules and 4 micro windpower units. This should increase power production to aboout 110 kWh per day and bring a return of up to 5000 Euros per year. The total investment for the systems will come to about 50,000 Euros including the mains connection. An accumulator to equalize mains input and an e-car charging station will cost 4000 Euros after deducting the subsidies.