Rushrush

  I teach a lot of company group classes and printing is such a hassle. I can do it there, in colour but you need to get someone to sign in and/or if I ask someone to print they enviably forget. It costs me around 25 a month, 5 for paper and 20 for instant ink. The contract pays really well so I don't mind.     Edit closer to 500 sheets a month

I'm a heavy printer (up to a 1000 pages a month) and the hardest number to come by is the cost per page for printing. To me that would be the most important number but as mentioned it's hard to find. Google "cheap printers" and all you get is the price.  Currently I'm using instant ink, running about 3-4 cents a pag vs about 7-8 cents (half if you can find a generic cartridge). HP is really pushing subscription services now, and comparted to buying cartridges it's much cheaper and less hassle. Generic ones are really hard to come by, HP makes it difficult to find ones that work. 

The thought of mandatory mask wearing, so sick of covid

Funny just read an article that said exactly that, American roads are not designed for such heavy vehicles. The battery in a hummer weights as much as a mid sized car.

Just a quick note but if you google ELSTER Certificate you get an option to set it up on English, also if you have a German ID card you can download a reader to your smart phone and use that to set it up. Note the reader doesn't work with auslander (?) ID cards

Edit: better explanation than what i posted     Good thread on inflation differences between US and Europe.  TLDR: US has stronger household balance sheets, rising incomes, and rapid growth coupled with inflation while the Eurozone has weaker wage/income growth with crazy high energy costs   https://twitter.com/dkthomp/status/1535686003788288001?s=21&t=ZwWC72XTRqQAOjI1xosFYA      

Yes in the form of the average persons spending , houses where much cheaper 30 years ago but the business financial press constantly fear monger over deficits - Euro zone fears of a default etc etc.    Others have commented that governments are using inflation as a cover to reduce the value of debt, much like the US government did after WW2

  Interesting points, seems counter intuitive as you normally think of inflation as a tax on the poor.     Paywalled link   https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/inflation-is-forgetting?r=8ahwm&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web   Edit: not sure why the formatting is so weird  

Any thoughts on why the ECB is so far behind the curve on inflation. Central banks around the world are aggressively raising rates. Read the the Bank of Canada is (which I follow as Canada is home*) has signalled a 75 basis point hike, Insane!!!!!! Yet the ECB is still talking like, yeah at some point we gotta raise rates but yeah what ever.   Oddly read online that mortgage rates have jumped (from under 1% to almost 3%) this despite the ECB rate being bus zero.   Germany is at serious risk of a wage price spiral if the ECB doesn't get it's act together   Holger Zschaepitz had this to say. Good morning from #Germany where risk of a wage-price spiral is rising. Now the union Verdi has demanded S&W hike of up to 14% for dock workers in container shipping, amongst others hourly compensation plus €1.20, extra payment of €1,200 as well as compensation for #inflation.   https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1535148623540932610?s=20&t=t6yldCqBcYSpUxuh6AHWMA   Other unions are pushing for pay hikes in the 8-10% range.    *a friend commented that, despite living here and never planning on returning home I still refer to Canada as home

This brings up an interesting question, what happens to the family insured spouse once you reach retirement.   Normally if you are family insured and earn above the limit (around 500€) you have to pay for your own health insurance. Each year my krankenkasse sends me a form that I have to fil out, etc etc.    Once my wife retires she will be  pflichtmitglied  (not sure if that is the correct term but she was  krankenversichert for 9/10 of the second half of her working life). but she has a German pension but I (for a variety of non relevant reasons) do not. I will be over the limit on income. I also will be retired living off investment income and non EU pension.   Thanks

What is the "HV"?   I'm curious how they got access to your mailbox without a key

What happens to those of us, and I suspect it will not be a small number, that simply can't won't fill out the new forms? I emailed my steuerbreater and he said there no way in God's green earth he could take this on. I'm required to submit it electronically but I don't have an ELSTER account and what happens if I try and create a new one will this mess up my current tax returns. I . I'm pretty up on this stuff and I'm struggling to understand it,  what's the average Herr Joe to do. 

In same situation we're using   https://knh-rechtsanwaelte.de/rechtsanwaelte/bettina-juli-heptner/

A friend, who needs to replace her building’s furnace, mentioned this. Did some googling but couldn't really find anything, might have been using the  wrong german terminology so hoping someone else had information.

I read somewhere that going forward only heat pumps will be allowed in Germany.  How they'll find the electricty needed to power millions of heap pumps, especially when the wind doesn't blow, is going to be the challenge of the century. That is assuming I'm correct on the new rules.   Besides that there's another heating rule coming in. It seems the new rules for landlords start next year Climate levy to be passed on to landlords. Basic gist is the landlord is to pay a portion of the CO2 tax proportional to how energy efficient the building is. Straight forward if the heating is included in the NK but the problem I see with this is for tenants who pay the heating bill separately as is in our situation. I'm assuming I'll have to send my landlord a bill each year and deduct it somehow from the NK I pay. Main complaint that I see that it punishes landlords who rent to tenants that like heat.   Now in theory the idea is good, encourage owners to upgrade the buildings. But I see two issues, 1st the majority of people live in apartments and you have to convince a majority to spend the money to upgrade. Second issue is finding the money. my guess is it would 100s of 1000s euros to upgrade a typical building. New windows, new heating insulation etc.    Afterthought, while it will be a huge cost to upgrade and tenants will save money on heating it will be more than offset by moderation rent increases.