Well, I was going to write a post about how to not pay taxes, but I delayed too much and now I’m writing a post telling you about how I’m going to Germany.
I’m going to Germany.
I wasn’t going to go so that we could save money, but then I talked to my host family on the phone and realized how much I missed speaking German, being in Germany, and I really wanted to see them again. Add in the fact that this is probably going to be the last time I can travel easily, since we have one kid already and are planning more and we decided I ought to take the opportunity and go. Fortunately, plane tickets are pretty cheap still pre-memorial day. They’d be cheaper if it weren’t for stupid taxes and fees. Tickets for Haakon and I total cost $250. Taxes and fees were $300 some odd. Talk getting ripped off.
In preparation for my trip, I’ve been watching lots of German TV shows so that my German doesn’t sound like I haven’t been speaking it for 3 years. As a result of this, I have some really funny news stories my libertarian readers might be interested in.
As a result of the “Wirtschaftskrise” (economic crisis), many Germans have seen their retirement funds oblitarated and while there is a similar Social Security scheme, many have private funds as well. So, in order to ease their pain, the German government is guaranteeing all retirement funds. This means that they won’t lose any value at all, ever. They won’t sink below the amount that you put in them (if I understood correctly) and this will be in effect until the economy recovers. Kind of makes me hope it doesn’t so I can see what they try next.
But that’s not the funny part. The reporter than stated that this was causing somewhat of a divide between old and young people and they interviewed a young person who stated that he did not think it was fair that the government was doing this. Then they interviewed an old person, who said, “I think it’s completely fair, but then again, I’m already retired!” That, my friends, should sum up the entirety of transfer payments.
The second humorous report involved a bunch of cars being smashed up that had “schrott” written on them and the reporter discussed something about “Umweltprämien” and a “Abwrackprämie” and how hundreds of thousands had yet to be paid them. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that the German government has been doing what the American government is thinking about doing: paying people to get rid of their old cars and buy new ones! The perceived benefits of this act are many fold: 1) people will buy new cars that are more friendly towards the enivornment (dubious, but ok) and 2) the autoindustry will be strengthened, since obviously only cars from the European 4 (analogous to the Big Three) can be purchased.
Sigh. Bastiat is spinning in his grave. It’s been hundreds of years since he first disproved the idea that doing such things could have any economic benefit whatsoever but politicians apparently know better. I mean, heck, the people get money for new cars so they’re happy and the politicians get more power, so they’re happy. It’s a win-win situation!
It’s been a rough week. On the job front, Lasse is inching closer to having paying employment, which is good. But he won’t find out if he gets this job in Maine until after November 24. Ages away.
Then on the family front, my brother had another psychotic break. He’s schizophrenic and this is his third one. It wasn’t unexpected, really, my sister and dad reported he’d been acting funny around the end of last month. We were more or less holding our breaths, waiting for it, but hoping it wouldn’t happen.
The bad thing is that this time, I’m not around to help out when the shit hits the fan. All the other times I’ve been in Wichita and helped my sister out taking care of her kids so that she can concentrate more time on my brother’s health. Last time, I undertook the challenge of cleaning my brother’s apartment (believe me when I say challenge). This time, I’m undertaking the challenge of sitting halfway across the country, saying “I wish I could do more…” while also feeling relieved that I moved out here so I wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of stress.
This time my brother’s being a lot more vocal about what it’s like when he has a psychotic break. Aside from his typical anger and talk about how he’s going to “bust outta here (here being the mental hospital),” he’s told my sister that his mind is under attack and he doesn’t think he’s going to win, sometimes he has thoughts everybody cheers. He’s started twitching, which my sister thinks might be a side effect of his medication, but he assured her it was “Sarah” kicking him. He knows something’s wrong with him and that he shouldn’t experience this sort of thing, but at the same time, he can’t get them to go away. He wants to be alone, but he never can be.
Even worse is how this is affecting my nephews. My youngest nephew is (hopefully) too little and too carefree to be really bothered by it. But not my oldest nephew, who has always been more introverted and sensitive. He started crying last night and told my sister how he felt like his whole family is falling apart: “First Shelly moves away and now Uncle’s in the nut house.” Then he got in trouble today at school for not paying attention and painting a wall in his set design class that wasn’t supposed to be painted. I imagine with all the stress that’s on him at the moment, he isn’t paying much attention to anything around him. I wish he could just stay home and chill throughout all this instead of being under constant pressure, but then my sister would have even more to do on top of her job, her family and all that.
To make things even worse, my parents are on vacation in Greece at the moment (a paid trip through the foreign exchange organization my mom works for). So it’s my sister shouldering all of it, with only my brother-in-law as back up.
On the plus side of all this, we’re going to Finland for a week! Lasse’s grandpa died* and he has to go to the funeral, so his parents sent us money for plane tickets and Lasse’s really looking forward to it. I was, too, before my brother went crazy. Then I started thinking about maybe going to Wichita instead. But if I don’t go to Finland, Lasse won’t go. And I am still looking forward to it: it’ll be nice to get out of the country again and go somewhere else, even if the weather is shitty and it’s dark all the time. It’ll be an ice change and we can register our son with the Finnish authorities so he’ll have citizenship there, too. The only thing that I am nervous about is flying international with an infant. Everyone else on the plane is going to hate us. Sorry, other passengers. I feel your pain. I really, really do.
*trust me, this isn’t really that sad. He was 97, had dementia, and a predilection for beating up men 20 years his junior once it got really bad. No one was really surprised when he finally went. He led a full life and was ready to go by the time it ended.
