Latest / 20 Percent Berlin Podcast / Podcast #002: Syrians, Nazi violence, No-confidence vote

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Podcast #002: Syrians, Nazi violence, No-confidence vote · 20 Percent Berlin Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the 20% Berlin podcast for Monday, December 16th.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: Today,
0:09
SPEAKER_02: we're talking about Syrian refugees in Berlin,
0:11
SPEAKER_02: the fireworks bans,
0:13
SPEAKER_02: a resurgence of Nazi violence,
0:15
SPEAKER_02: and probably the vote of no confidence in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm 20% Berlin co-founder Andrew Boakley.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: My name is Maurice Frank, and I also write the 20% newsletter.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: You're also a co-founder.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm also a co-founder.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: All right.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: So should we just kick right off with the Syrian refugees?
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go for it, Andrew.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: What do you have for us?
0:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's apparently 50,000 Syrian refugees in Berlin.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: There's almost a million, 973,000 in all of Germany or something like that.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Right away, of course, when Assad was dethroned, the AFD came out and said, hey, let's send them back.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: Send the Syrians back.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just the AFD, though.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: It was also the CDU, the Conservative Party, people like Jens Spahn.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: were tweeted immediately within about an hour of the news of Assad's downfall.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: He tweeted,
1:11
SPEAKER_01: hey,
1:11
SPEAKER_01: maybe we need to help Syrians return to their country and maybe we could give them
1:16
SPEAKER_01: a thousand euros each to help them on their way.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: He can, I mean, he's got plenty of money.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh, because of all those corona masks he saw?
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Corona masks, weird real estate deals.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: He could give people that go back.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's a problem to say how could we eventually maybe send Syrian
1:34
SPEAKER_02: refugees back,
1:35
SPEAKER_02: assist Syrian refugees who want to go home.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: But if we learn nothing from the Arab Spring, we don't know who these people are in Syria.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: We can't send people back there.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a messed up place right now.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: And it probably will be for the next few months.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't want to send people back to America at this point.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:54
SPEAKER_01: it is just really tasteless and pretty heartless the way they just immediately go
2:00
SPEAKER_01: into campaigning mode.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: Because we have a national election coming up in February.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of politicians are just jumping on the bandwagon saying,
2:09
SPEAKER_01: hey,
2:09
SPEAKER_01: how can we send as many foreigners back home as possible?
2:14
SPEAKER_01: It's too early.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: The problem is we agree on this.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: If we had an argument about it, like what are you going to, I think, I think it's okay.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can figure out the framework.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: The framework is probably already there.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean by framework?
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, like if you, if people of Syrians say, Hey, you know what?
2:28
SPEAKER_02: It looks safe.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: I can go home now.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: How do we do it?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's a little early to start pressuring them to go home.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: I read that there are 5,000 practicing doctors in Germany.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And if you just sent them home, the hospitals of Germany would be even more screwed up.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I think actually it should be illegal for Syrian dermatologists to go home.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: They have to stay.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Do they have special talents?
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever tried to get an appointment with a dermatologist?
2:55
SPEAKER_01: Good point.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: The ones where you say...
2:58
SPEAKER_01: where they want you to pay yourself you can get an appointment tomorrow yeah are
3:02
SPEAKER_01: you going to pay yourself i was thinking about it i mean i probably to be honest i
3:06
SPEAKER_02: would like if it if it came down to it if i needed it this so my stepmother is like
3:10
SPEAKER_02: in her 80s and she has great they have great insurance apparently really good
3:14
SPEAKER_02: health insurance i know this because my dad was in the hospital
3:17
SPEAKER_02: So they have normal Medicare,
3:18
SPEAKER_02: like they have the government insurance in America,
3:20
SPEAKER_02: then they have like whatever supplemental insurance you can get,
3:22
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: She still wasn't happy with her care.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: So now she pays $350 a month to just go to a doctor.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's just like elitist medicine.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: And we do have that.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: We kind of have that in Germany, too.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have this whole 8 million people are privately insured.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like she's got that and then she's paying even more on top.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's what rich people do, right?
3:44
SPEAKER_01: I guess they do.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, the thing that also exists here, you know, that's what we can't forget.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Like,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: if you phone up your doctor and say,
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I am private physician and privately insured,
3:53
SPEAKER_01: you gotta get an appointment.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Doors open.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I find that a little bit cringy.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: It's always going to be that way.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: But whatever, it just reminded me of that.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: I just thought it was weird that my stepmother was paying all this money just
4:06
SPEAKER_02: because she doesn't like her doctors.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: But back to the Syrian situation.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think at least 250,000 Syrians are in employment.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And if you add,
4:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: children,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: elderly people,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: that's a lot of people who are basically completely integrated into German society.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: They speak German.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: They work somewhere.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: They got friends.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: I've heard some anecdotes.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: I talked to a few Syrian people, like a journalist.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: He's like, no, no way I'm going back there.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: It's better here.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Then stay.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just a bunch of hot air.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: It's called grandstanding.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: It's called campaigning.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: It's called campaigning.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Instead of maybe trying to fix the problems of this country,
4:57
SPEAKER_01: right now,
4:58
SPEAKER_01: the economy,
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Ukraine,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: internet,
5:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: we have nothing to say about Syrians other than we're glad you're here pretty much
5:08
SPEAKER_01: yeah right and I love that restaurant in Friedrichshain it's called what's it
5:11
SPEAKER_01: called again there's a great Syrian there's a great Syrian restaurant in I think
5:17
SPEAKER_01: it's called no it's called Aleppo Supper Club shout out to Aleppo Supper Club we
5:21
SPEAKER_01: love you great food guys check it out it's in Friedrichshain I like the Lebanese
5:25
SPEAKER_02: one five minutes to Beirut I don't know it's right next to a comedy club
5:31
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's why I know it.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Best falafel, I think.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: All right, moving on.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: We're killing it today.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: We're moving on.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: We're going.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Fireworks, something we disagree on.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I have a real...
5:46
SPEAKER_01: nostalgia about childhood firework shooting you know i lived in the u.s as well in
5:52
SPEAKER_01: my teen years and i have really fond memories of going to the golf course and just
5:56
SPEAKER_01: shooting bottle rockets at my friends and so you know i did that with my my older
6:03
SPEAKER_01: daughter as well when
6:04
SPEAKER_01: she was growing up you shot bottle rockets at your daughter no not at her but i i
6:08
SPEAKER_01: really enjoyed just setting off fireworks with her at like you know like 10 in the
6:13
SPEAKER_01: evening on new year's eve and then and then when she got a little older actually at
6:17
SPEAKER_01: midnight i just you know i always stayed closer and made sure there's nothing
6:21
SPEAKER_01: coming her way but those bottle rockets you were shooting in santa fe like did you
6:25
SPEAKER_02: have to go to wyoming to buy them
6:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember that.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Cause they were illegal in Colorado.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: We had to go to Wyoming.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, those are tiny little things.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Those are like, those are a joke compared to the things you get here.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: Like even that the legal things in Germany are like probably 50 times as powerful
6:39
SPEAKER_02: as those little black cat bottle rockets.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: And those were nothing.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
6:44
SPEAKER_01: I guess one of the main,
6:46
SPEAKER_01: for me,
6:46
SPEAKER_01: one of the main arguments against fireworks is not really the violence and mayhem
6:50
SPEAKER_01: it inspires,
6:51
SPEAKER_01: but the air pollution.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: It is pretty bad.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: It's awful.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like sulfuric mist that like descends upon the whole city for all night long.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: And for what?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: For like a little testosterone rush.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Sigh.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, Germans, like they like to let it out like one time a year.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: Not all of us can afford to like go on the Autobahn in like a, in a giant BMW.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: So that's the little fun that we have.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Don't even, I had to go get Tiff in my car today.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: Don't even get me started.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: It's such a scam.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: Total scam.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: Don't drive.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: Complete scam.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: No, but I get it.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: Man, like I miss shooting guns too.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: It's fun making a loud noise, but it's not fun when a million people are doing it all at once.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Not to mention the animals.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: You probably don't have pets.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: We unfortunately have pets.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: They hate it, man.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: They go crazy.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know people with dogs who go and get an Airbnb in Brandenburg on that night.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: And then they always discover, oh, but the people in that town are also setting off fireworks.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: So what's the actual debate right now?
7:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
7:49
SPEAKER_01: right now the government is saying,
7:50
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
7:51
SPEAKER_01: we have these three,
7:51
SPEAKER_01: four firework-free zones,
7:54
SPEAKER_01: like Alexanderplatz,
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Sonnenallee,
7:57
SPEAKER_01: somewhere in Schöneberg.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the big social palace, the big huge Neubau thing over the old bunker on Potsdamer Straße.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be thousands of police and thousands of firefighters out in the streets.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it called like the Steinmetzkeits?
8:11
SPEAKER_01: Steinmetzkeits, that's it.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: I get it confused with the Steindom in Hamburg.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
8:15
SPEAKER_01: one of the issues over the last two post-Corona New Year's Eves was basically kids
8:23
SPEAKER_01: shooting fireworks into the faces of police and first responders,
8:28
SPEAKER_01: which...
8:29
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: That's a little, that's a little exaggerated.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: What, on the police part or on the kids' part?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: On the kids' part, like just shooting like point blank range, like a firework into an ambulance.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: I get that, that's not cool.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: It is hard not to just lob a little firecracker down into a group of people,
8:45
SPEAKER_02: especially when they're clad in black with helmets on.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: I just think, just ban them, man.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Just like,
8:50
SPEAKER_02: because they have these stupid,
8:51
SPEAKER_02: those zones,
8:52
SPEAKER_02: they don't,
8:53
SPEAKER_02: they don't,
8:53
SPEAKER_02: first they don't enforce it.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they only use it for selective enforcement.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: But what about the hundreds of people who are out there, like, working in the firework factories?
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Andrew, what about those people?
9:03
SPEAKER_01: I hate that argument.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: I despise...
9:04
SPEAKER_01: Ooh,
9:04
SPEAKER_02: what about...
9:05
SPEAKER_02: Hey,
9:06
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
9:06
SPEAKER_02: what about...
9:07
SPEAKER_02: You know,
9:07
SPEAKER_02: people used to paint clocks with radium,
9:09
SPEAKER_02: and they would lick the brushes covered in radium before they put it on...
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
9:13
SPEAKER_02: and those people are all out of jobs because they're dead.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: Like,
9:17
SPEAKER_02: I hate that argument of what about the...
9:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
9:20
SPEAKER_02: how many...
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen the videos of when these fireworks factories catch on fire?
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: They probably have good insurance.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: How many people died?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: In Holland, like 15 years ago, it was like 30 people died.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: People die doing all kinds of stupid stuff, especially New Year's Eve.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's ban ketamine.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's already banned.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: And fewer people die because of it.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, there have been fewer arrests, fewer cannabis-related arrests.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: What does that have to do with fireworks?
9:47
SPEAKER_01: If you ban fireworks...
9:49
SPEAKER_01: What is the police going to do?
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Arrest everyone with a Polish bottle rocket?
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Well,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: no,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: but if you banned fireworks,
9:56
SPEAKER_02: if fireworks per se were illegal,
9:57
SPEAKER_02: it would be easier to go get to people with the Polish things because there
10:00
SPEAKER_02: wouldn't be 600 other people setting up fireworks.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: There would only be that guy with the illegal fireworks.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: There's going to be a giant black market for it.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's not going to be anywhere near what it is now.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: And like regular, regular law abiding kids won't be able to shoot their fireworks.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what I want.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: That is precisely what I want.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: If fireworks are outlawed, only outlaws will have fireworks.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm all for it.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to get them and go off into Brandenburg somewhere in a firework zone,
10:29
SPEAKER_02: then go to that firework zone.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm all for that.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: You can have a legal area.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: It should be the other way around.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: It should be the other way around.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: We shouldn't have fireworks-free zones.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: We should have firework zones.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: That's how it should be.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: I could do that.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Firework zones.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: I think Alexander Platts would be a good firework zone.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: No, that would be good.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody there.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: And there's no trees.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: There's no animals.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: It's a perfect place.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: It's a concrete jungle.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Right, nobody lives there.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, beautiful.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Yet, there are slowly getting to be people living there.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay, right.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they can afford it.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: Or like on the roof of Alexa or something.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just these places.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: The roofs of shopping centers.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'd be good.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Potsdamer Platz.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Potsdamer Platz, yeah.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like, okay, I think we can agree on that.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: There's finally a reason to go to Potsdamer Platz.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's all right.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: You could even do it at the Ziegesäule.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Ziegesäule?
11:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the problem is there's wild animals there, but...
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Brandenburg-Atois.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess you have the official fireworks show there.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: That's how it should be.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: You should have these little fireworks zones.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: I found it really liberating when I moved to Germany that I could just shoot my own.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: I find it very liberating when I go to America and I can just shoot my guns.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: But like, there's, I mean, this just doesn't, it doesn't work.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: We're adults.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: We have to function in an adult society.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: I guess we'll agree to disagree.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: We came up with a solution, man.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: We came up with the Steinmetz Keats is actually now a fireworks zone.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: All the ones that they want to have as band zones,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: we reverse the whole thing and make those fireworks zones.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Inverse.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Backwards day, I think we called that.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: okay the reverse card in uno but then there'll be even more like deaths and
12:03
SPEAKER_01: injuries in those zones i don't think so no i don't think so i think it's like a
12:07
SPEAKER_01: gladiator situation yeah they can go and stand on the edges and just watch right
12:13
SPEAKER_01: maybe maybe you need to have like to be in that zone you need to wear protective
12:17
SPEAKER_01: goggles sure yeah germans love protective equipment no short sleeves
12:23
SPEAKER_02: A good walking outfit.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: All right.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: All right.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: Moving on, Andrew.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: What do you have for us?
12:28
SPEAKER_02: We're cranking through our thing here.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: Let's go on to national news briefly.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Chancellor Schultz got the vote of no confidence from the Bundestag from the parliament today.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: He's out.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: He's basically out.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: And this paves the way for a national election on February 23rd, I believe.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: I think it was that.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's all been agreed.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: I thought today I was like, you know what?
12:54
SPEAKER_02: I have more confidence in Schultz than I have in Mance.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, if we're going to be literal about this, about a vote, I'd rather, I'm fine with Schultz.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: You know,
13:02
SPEAKER_01: there was a fun little detail about this was that on Berliner Zeitung,
13:06
SPEAKER_01: where we used to work,
13:08
SPEAKER_01: which is...
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Which I still can't believe you still read that piece.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, they like to troll all the other media.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: And their top story was just before the vote of no confidence.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Their story was several members of the AFD are going to vote in favor of Schultz just to be douchebags.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: It is funny.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, a broken clock is right twice a day, you know, like, okay, right.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know why they would do that.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: What would be the motivation?
13:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's the opposite.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: What is the,
13:40
SPEAKER_02: the AFD is just about being a three-year-old child throwing itself on the ground
13:44
SPEAKER_02: and having a temper tantrum.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: And maybe,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: maybe there was a calculation while like Schultz is going to make even more of a
13:50
SPEAKER_01: fool of himself if he like.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't get the vote of no confidence.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't get the vote of no confidence and has to serve his entire term for
13:57
SPEAKER_01: the next two years or whatever it is.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: But then, I mean, how many of them are there in the Bundestag?
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, obviously not enough because it didn't happen.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: Didn't happen.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Five of them.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: What, after people?
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know there's more than that.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's like 20 or 30.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's not enough in a 430-seat Bundestag or whatever it is.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: They're just three-year-olds.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but the thing is, 18% of the German people say they will be voting for those three-year-olds.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, 18% of the population is a three-year-old.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, okay.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: No,
14:29
SPEAKER_02: I think,
14:29
SPEAKER_02: like,
14:29
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what politician,
14:30
SPEAKER_02: who said this,
14:31
SPEAKER_02: I should have,
14:31
SPEAKER_02: I saw it and I meant to write it down,
14:33
SPEAKER_02: said the one thing the AFD has done right is given East Germans a positive identity.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: Positive?
14:39
SPEAKER_02: How do you mean that?
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Like, they just stand up for East Germany.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
14:42
SPEAKER_02: we are East German,
14:43
SPEAKER_02: like,
14:44
SPEAKER_02: use the word proud,
14:45
SPEAKER_02: which you're not allowed to use in Germany,
14:46
SPEAKER_02: so we're proud to be East German.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: Like, nobody else really does that.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: What about, sorry about Wagenkommission?
14:52
SPEAKER_02: I think she says I'm proud to be Russian.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I think she actually, what she says is I'm proud to be Sarah Wagenknecht.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like, you know, we could start a, we could start a political party to call it 20% Berlin.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: But we'd have to call it Maurice Frank.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: You'd have to call it Bündnis Andrew and Maurice.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh my God, we get nothing done.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: I was going to have an alcohol-free beer while we were doing this.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: I forget it.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: What else is there to say about the vote of no confidence?
15:22
SPEAKER_01: So what do you think about the vote of no confidence?
15:23
SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about this situation?
15:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, man.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: It's just, I think Germany does need something new, but it isn't going to get anything new.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Like it's going to, it's going to end up as a, as a grand coalition between the CDU and the SPD.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're right.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: With some greens thrown in.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: We're right back where we were.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: It's, I mean, that's what Germany wants.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: They like,
15:44
SPEAKER_02: they try something different for four years and then they go,
15:47
SPEAKER_02: no,
15:47
SPEAKER_02: this is,
15:47
SPEAKER_02: they didn't even make four years this time.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Like last time we had coal for 16 years.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Then they're like, okay, look, can I have Gerhard Schroeder for four years or whatever?
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
15:55
SPEAKER_01: unless Matt really does something radically different and opts for a coalition with
16:03
SPEAKER_01: the AFD,
16:03
SPEAKER_01: if the AFD does really well,
16:05
SPEAKER_01: I would say there's like a 10% chance he goes for it.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Everybody keeps saying that.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: 10%.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: I think you would have such a revolt.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Then you've got everybody against you.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, all right, you have then theoretically a majority.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: You might have a majority of the...
16:18
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, stuff like that usually goes really badly.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, Sweden, they did that.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, the mainstream conservatives did a coalition with the sort of AfD-type people.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: And it turned out,
16:28
SPEAKER_01: like,
16:28
SPEAKER_01: half of the ministers that the far-right people appointed were just,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: like,
16:33
SPEAKER_01: kind of like mobsters or,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: like,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: swindlers or just,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: like,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: just total weirdos,
16:38
SPEAKER_01: you know?
16:38
SPEAKER_01: They couldn't find any, like, normal people to fill those posts.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the problem.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: They're not actually – they're three-year-olds.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: They're just little bratty kids.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: They don't know how to govern.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: And now try to sit down and do actually work with these people.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Like the only thing they know how to do well is just like be total provocative assholes on social media.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: And that's got to hand it to them.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: They know how to TikTok.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't get it.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: I used to get like TikTok would suggest all these Nazi lives to me.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't get those much anymore.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: A friend of mine who's in the SPD,
17:09
SPEAKER_01: in the sort of like administration of the SPD,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: he complained that the AFD has something like three times as many people working on
17:17
SPEAKER_01: social media as any of the other mainstream parties.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, that's easy to counter.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: So then appoint more people to work in social media.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Right, but they're not doing it.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: I know, but that's why I hate when people say like, oh my God, you know what?
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, you could counter it.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: You could do it.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: But like, why don't they?
17:32
SPEAKER_02: It's weird.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't see the SPD offering me to do anything for them, you know?
17:35
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: They could.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: SPD, if you want some social media work for a guy who's not even German.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Wait, you're almost German, right?
17:42
SPEAKER_02: How's citizenship?
17:43
SPEAKER_02: Give us an update.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: I have to go get that because I slept.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: I missed the language test.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: So I got to get another language test.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: I just thought about that today.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: I just have been kind of, I've been too busy to sign up for another language test.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that should be a basic thing to get a country citizenship.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to come to an appointment.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Especially in Germany, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Especially in Germany.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: I thought like, yeah, that was the most un-German thing of me waking up.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even remember till that afternoon.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: Like somebody asked me what's up with the citizenship.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my God, I was supposed to have a language test this morning.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: The other thing is, the other thing is I was trying to go back to old day timers, like paper day timers.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: Because for some reason, my Google calendar wasn't working.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: So I was like, I'm going to try to do one of these old paper things.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: My brain is too digital now.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: If my little phone,
18:28
SPEAKER_02: if my handy does not tell me what I'm supposed to be doing at any moment,
18:32
SPEAKER_02: then my brain doesn't register it.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: So I had all this stuff in my paper day timer that I was using.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: But I wasn't really, I was only writing the things in there and then forgetting them.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's like a reminder function in Google Calendar.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: I know, but for some reason, it wasn't like my brain got out of sync with it.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how to describe it.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: I was like, this isn't working for me.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: I've got to go back to paper.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: And then nothing worked for like a month.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: And that was the, then right after that day, I went back to Google Calendar.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: It must be those late nights in the green room.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: It was, in fact, a late night backstage.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was the problem.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: For all of you listeners who don't know,
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Andrew is a semi-famous comedian in the federal Republic of Germany.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I would go for quarter famous.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: Quarter famous.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Quarter famous.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: Maybe eighth.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: More famous in Berlin, other parts I'm finding out.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: You have a show to plug?
19:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: I got to plan one.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: I realized that today too.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: Dude, I'm so busy.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Rose, I was in Hamburg this weekend.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: I was in Magdeburg Saturday night.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever been to Magdeburg?
19:24
SPEAKER_02: I've been there.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: What an armpit.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh my God.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: It's funny,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: we all talk about,
19:31
SPEAKER_02: okay,
19:31
SPEAKER_02: we all talk about Leninist architecture on Frankfurt Allee,
19:35
SPEAKER_02: right?
19:35
SPEAKER_02: Like that's a Berlin thing.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: It's not.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Those same exact buildings are in Leipzig and I found out in Magdeburg.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Same exact buildings.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And Chemnitz and Rostock and all those places.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: They just built them everywhere.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: To be fair, I was just in Paris and they have them there too.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: What a mess.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: But the problem with modern works,
19:54
SPEAKER_02: I think they built all those big,
19:55
SPEAKER_02: huge Plattenbau,
19:56
SPEAKER_02: those big five,
19:57
SPEAKER_02: six-story,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: gigantic apartment buildings.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: And there were probably holes between them.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: And after reunification,
20:04
SPEAKER_02: they put Neubau between these Plattenbau things rather than thinking,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: hey,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: let's replan this city.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: Let's make it a little bit more pleasant.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: So you just have these gigantic, wide boulevards with nothing but big, flat buildings.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: On each side.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: That was pleasant in the eyes of the Politburo of East Germany.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it wasn't, what, in 93?
20:23
SPEAKER_02: No, because there's a new mall at every corner in Magdeburg.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: All right,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: I walk from the train station to the venue,
20:31
SPEAKER_02: from the venue to my hotel,
20:32
SPEAKER_02: from the hotel back to the train station.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: So I'm talking about a one square kilometer area of Magdeburg.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: All right.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: Speaking, so we're being negative.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: Let's offset that negative by going to our favorite part,
20:43
SPEAKER_02: being positive about the Berlin,
20:45
SPEAKER_02: a segment called Bear's Knees.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: The Bear's Knees.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: What do you like about Berlin, Maurice?
20:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like a lot of things, but there's something I've noticed recently.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: In my neighborhood,
20:59
SPEAKER_01: I've always complained about tags on every building,
21:03
SPEAKER_01: every square centimeter of every building.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually,
21:06
SPEAKER_02: I actually saw a really good TikTok about this the other day where the guy's like,
21:09
SPEAKER_02: oh,
21:09
SPEAKER_02: you're a great artist,
21:10
SPEAKER_02: so you have to do it on other people's things and cost other people money.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you do it on your own canvas?
21:15
SPEAKER_02: Make art.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: All you're really doing is throwing a tantrum.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: But what I've noticed is I'd say in the last four or five months,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: landlords have kind of teamed together and painted over the walls of the entire neighborhood.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking like, I don't know, like five, six, seven, eight blocks.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you live in officially Prenzlauer Berg or is it Pankow?
21:36
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like Prenzlauer Berg, the edges of Prenzlauer Berg, sort of the armpit of Prenzlauer Berg.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, and I've noticed usually when they did that, they did it once a year or something.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: They would paint over all the buildings.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And within a week, it would be covered in like crappy little tags.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And now it just isn't anymore.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: It's been mostly tag-free for months.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Because all the kids get to it.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: They're all studying now.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Or they're just doing like dumb shit on their phone.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: This is your theory is TikTok is saving.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Like who cares about physical reality when you have TikTok?
22:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the building on the corner here got a huge graffiti on it last weekend.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think that's entirely true.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Like,
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't have a problem with actual graffiti where,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: like,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: somebody spent more than five minutes,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: like,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: drawing something or spray painting something.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: But these little, like, squiggle things everywhere, I mean.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't get that.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't get either one, actually.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: I read this thing.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: I thought, like, dude, if you're such a great artist, then go do it.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: Like, do it somewhere where it's going to last, where you can, like, whatever.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: Every time I talk about graffiti, I get 6,000 emails that I'm a horrible human being.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the tagging thing came out of New York City in the 1970s.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was more about, like, marking your territory, you know, all that kind of stuff.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: I saw those documentaries, too.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: You were there, and then you were in New York.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, I was alive then.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: It was, like, on 60 Minutes and 2020.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Right, but now it's just like, okay, you're like some middle-class kid in a hoodie.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: It was the middle-class kid in a hoodie back then, too.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: It's the same stupid thing.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: But now middle class hoodie, people in hoodies are just watching Andrew Tate or something.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: But it's weird.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: So it's weird that it's missing in your... Right.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: But I kind of like it.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
23:11
SPEAKER_02: no,
23:12
SPEAKER_02: when I go to all these different cities in my one-eighth famous comedy,
23:16
SPEAKER_02: it's weird how clean other cities are.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just in Paris, which has a reputation for being disgusting.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wait, there's no graffiti.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: There's no trash.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: They have great trash cans in Paris, too, compared to the Berlin ones.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Like,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: they just have these sort of metal frames that are quite elegant,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: and they have,
23:33
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:33
SPEAKER_01: a condom thing in the middle.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: And then you put the trash in it.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: And then they come pick up the condom.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: But in Berlin, it's like this orange thing with like some dumb pun on it.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: For die Zigarette danach or something.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: That the bottom falls out of.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the bottom always falls out.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Like there's always like if they open it with a key and then it doesn't usually
23:52
SPEAKER_01: lock or somebody just like...
23:54
SPEAKER_01: right but i think that transparent thing like it was i guess originally set up so
23:58
SPEAKER_01: that you could see if there was a bomb in the trash right yeah but i think they
24:02
SPEAKER_01: should do that here but germany never copies good things from other countries no
24:05
SPEAKER_02: this drives me nuts about berlin it's like we can't do that we have to study it
24:09
SPEAKER_02: first oh every other country's already solved it you could just go borrow their
24:11
SPEAKER_02: solution no no no berlin is special berlin is unique yeah like like how about
24:17
SPEAKER_01: supermarkets open on sundays that would be a good idea
24:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm against that.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: Actually, supermarkets, I think, are okay.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: Like, certain things.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Or, like, you can't have more than three filial.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: You can't have three stores.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: So the little guy wins.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: You mean the pharmacies, you mean?
24:34
SPEAKER_02: No, I think, like, you could have a grocery store, but you can't be a chain.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: You have to be, like, a local grocery store.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
24:40
SPEAKER_02: No.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Have, like, a local owner.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: No, that's my, that was my, it's Andrew's Law.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: oh okay okay like i would be all right things opening on sunday if it's like just
24:47
SPEAKER_02: one person like it's if it's a local thing i'm just open everything man just open
24:51
SPEAKER_02: it all yeah i don't i like i like one day it's just like quite the city's quiet by
24:56
SPEAKER_02: mandate
24:57
SPEAKER_02: Right, but then you have to order pizza because you forget to buy stuff.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: You've got to be German, man.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: You've got to stock up.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have some Tiefkühlbrüchen.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: But here's a little service announcement, though.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: December 22nd, which is the Sunday, will be a Verkaufs-Ofener-Zontag, which means...
25:15
SPEAKER_01: your local supermarket will probably be open.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: But it's a limited hour.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: It's something like 10 to 3.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: I think it's 1 to 4.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, 1 to 4.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Actually, the thing is, us expats, we'll never be able to remember that it's a verkaufshofenes ontag.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: So we will forget.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: We'll sit at home mad that we can't go shopping on that day, even though you could go shopping.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: You're going to put it in the newsletter on Friday.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: But it is absurd.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, you can go shopping...
25:39
SPEAKER_01: at a train station like seven days a week.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: But the theory was like, well, maybe you're a traveler.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: You might need to buy something for the trip.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: But, like, everyone's going there just to buy their groceries.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: So that whole idea of, like, train station supermarkets can be open.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: This is totally ridiculous.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: It's a Reva at Ostbahnhof now.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: That used to be, like, the only thing.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: There was a Real there.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: It was called Rio.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: That place was nuts on a Sunday.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: I just have the Biomarkt at Gesundbrun.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, now there's, like, tons of them.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: But back in the day, that was the only – there wasn't even a thing in Friedrichshaus.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: That was the only game in town on a Sunday.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: So you're there with, like, people just coming out of Berghain, mothers.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: It was nuts.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: There's probably a documentary about it somewhere.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: While we're on the service thing, we have to do two corrections from last week or two updates.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: What do you have?
26:23
SPEAKER_02: Well,
26:24
SPEAKER_02: I said,
26:24
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of bothered me,
26:25
SPEAKER_02: I listened to the podcast,
26:25
SPEAKER_02: and I said I'm for free market,
26:27
SPEAKER_02: apartment rental prices,
26:29
SPEAKER_02: free market.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: That's not entirely true.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: I am for the free market rental prices,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: but I think the government should also have a gigantic stock of apartments,
26:38
SPEAKER_02: which then gives them significant leverage in the market.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Are you saying we shouldn't sell all the public housing to BlackRock?
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Well,
26:46
SPEAKER_02: it's an easy thing to say now,
26:47
SPEAKER_02: but everybody forgets the Berlin of back then,
26:49
SPEAKER_02: what was going on in Berlin back then.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: They actually sold them to Goldman Sachs, by the way.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: But Berlin had no money, right?
26:56
SPEAKER_01: So they just desperately, basically to cook the books, they sold everything.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: And also, back then, the word on the street was nobody will ever move to Berlin.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: From our viewpoint now, that's hard to believe.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: But that was what people thought back in 2005 was Berlin is going to remain a backwater.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: It's not going to have a renaissance.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: They're moving the government here, but that's going to be about it.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Now you're happy if you can get like a social housing in Spandau or something, right?
27:25
SPEAKER_02: A friend of mine worked for a company, Lone Star Funds of Dallas, which just shows how ridiculous it is.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: They bought a bunch of the old Plattenbau in Matson,
27:32
SPEAKER_02: and because they couldn't rent them out,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: they were taking several levels off of them,
27:37
SPEAKER_02: several stories.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: What?
27:39
SPEAKER_02: They were making them smaller.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they made them smaller because they couldn't rent them out otherwise.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Everybody likes to say,
27:46
SPEAKER_02: oh,
27:46
SPEAKER_02: you sold these things off because you were corrupt,
27:48
SPEAKER_02: dirty,
27:48
SPEAKER_02: but it was a different Berlin back then.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: So now we're just sort of like, okay.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, now we're doing nothing.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Now we're doing absolutely nothing.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: But I think, yeah, I think the government should just build a ton of apartments.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Right, but the government is not allowed to spend any money.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: Should we go back to the Schwarze Null?
28:08
SPEAKER_02: Let's go back to the Swabian housewife.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Wait, no, you have to explain the other Swabian housewife.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: You have to talk about the Regier and the Burgermeister.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: I was wrong.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: I thought every party has a mayor, and that's why everybody's like, oh, this is our mayor.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: He's not governing right now, but this would be our mayor.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: That's not it.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: The governing mayor is the mayor of a city and a state, because Berlin is a city and a state.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a city state.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: It's a city state.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a Hanseatic city.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was ever in the Hanseatic League.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: It was actually in the Hanseatic League.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Was it really?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: So Germany has three city states.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: It has Berlin, it has Bremen, and it has Hamburg.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: They all were Hanseatic cities.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: I guess that explains their independence and why they get to have state status.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: When the Hohenzollern took over Berlin,
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Berlin was in the Hanseatic League and Berlin said,
28:57
SPEAKER_02: hey,
28:58
SPEAKER_02: come help us get the Hohenzollern out of here.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: And the Hanseatic League said, what?
29:01
SPEAKER_02: What?
29:02
SPEAKER_02: No.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: And so Berlin was like, all right, we don't want you.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: So we forgot to do my bear's knees things.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: That reminded me of my bear's knees things.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: But that is what I like about Berlin.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: I went out to, I went, it was my birthday recently.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: And for dinner, we went to some Letzen Instanz, which is theoretically Berlin's oldest restaurant.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: And it's right next to the,
29:22
SPEAKER_02: to the,
29:23
SPEAKER_02: one of the big court,
29:23
SPEAKER_02: the court that's down on Alexanderplatz,
29:25
SPEAKER_02: basically,
29:25
SPEAKER_02: but it's across the street.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: So you don't say it's on Alexanderplatz.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: the big administrative court and you look in the windows and I've been in there.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: And one thing I really like about our building are these big old buildings left
29:34
SPEAKER_02: over from like the late 19th century.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: They're huge and they're gorgeous.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: And it just makes you,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: you're like,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: wow,
29:41
SPEAKER_02: we really are connected to a crazy,
29:43
SPEAKER_02: like skipping over a certain past in Berlin.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: You're connected to a crazy path.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: Like Berlin had a crazy past, man.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: It was such a wealthy city.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: They just built these gigantic buildings with tons of space in them just because they look nice.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, whenever I go in there, I've been in there too many times.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: I just think this is like some kind of like M.C.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Escher slash Franz Kafka hell.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the staircases are crazy.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: With a nice sort of Baroque trim on it.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: And then if you go down to the Schoenberger Rathaus, it's the same thing.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: It's crazy.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: I love those buildings.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: You just feel connected to something.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Right,
30:19
SPEAKER_01: but I also associate it with these appointments with representatives of the state
30:23
SPEAKER_01: that don't always have nice things to say to me.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Because you were getting divorced?
30:29
SPEAKER_01: No, it was in my former venture, you know, lawsuits of different kinds.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's not go into that.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: I had a lawsuit.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: I had to go to court once for something differently, and it was not in one of those buildings.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: It looked worse than like a classroom.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I've had that too.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: I've had traffic courts.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: When my girlfriend was pregnant,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: she really needed pizza and we took a car share and I just slammed into some other
30:52
SPEAKER_01: car because I was in a rush.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: And,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: whenever you have a really minor traffic accident in Berlin and you're thinking about,
31:01
SPEAKER_01: hey,
31:01
SPEAKER_01: maybe I can just not report this to anyone,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: always look up and see if there's some guy smoking on his balcony.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: you don't even you don't have to look up there is always some guy there's a dude
31:12
SPEAKER_02: writing down your license plate right you just but you know what sure it cost you a
31:15
SPEAKER_02: lot of money a lot of aggravation you made that guy's day he's still talking about
31:18
SPEAKER_02: it it's happened to me twice at least and in the end you know what it turned out to
31:22
SPEAKER_02: be an american it was an american trying to get away with something well what else
31:27
SPEAKER_01: do we have on the news
31:33
SPEAKER_02: The only thing we have left is sort of this weird resurgence of Nazi violence.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Like at the Christopher Street Day parade,
31:38
SPEAKER_02: they had to like corral 40 skinheads or maybe it was 20 skinheads and keep them
31:42
SPEAKER_02: away from the parade.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Like they found out about it ahead of time.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: But these skinheads were going to attack the Christopher Street Day parade.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: They prevented, the police prevented it.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: And then this weekend, there was a neo-Nazi riot in, riot, protest in Liechtenberg.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: And on the way to the protest, four neo-Nazis ran into two members of the SPD and beat them up.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, I read about that too.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: That incident actually happened in Lichtenada, which is in the deep west, which is unusual too.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: The thing about the deep west in Berlin is that if you're coming from the east,
32:17
SPEAKER_02: you're still going to have to go through the west.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're coming from Magdeburg, for example.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: right okay i just have a theory that there's been a resurgence in the last few
32:28
SPEAKER_01: years of real skinhead nazis like really young men who are actually shaving their
32:34
SPEAKER_01: heads again and putting on bomber jackets i'd say over the last decade there was a
32:40
SPEAKER_01: shift to like the more like quote-unquote respectable look for the far right sort
32:46
SPEAKER_01: of the identitarian people who
32:49
SPEAKER_01: kind of like hipster tie they kind of had a hipster vibe about them or they walked
32:53
SPEAKER_01: around in with canvas bags and and wore patagonia and stuff like that and and it is
32:59
SPEAKER_01: kind of shift there's a there's been a shift which is really worrying that they're
33:03
SPEAKER_01: like going back to the 90s you know this look of like yeah i'm gonna wear like a
33:07
SPEAKER_01: bomber jacket jack boots shave my head
33:11
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty frightening.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: It's the problem of a political party like the AFD becoming legitimate because then
33:18
SPEAKER_02: they think,
33:18
SPEAKER_02: oh,
33:18
SPEAKER_02: we're not the only ones.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: They feel justified in doing what they want.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: They feel supported.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: And they have a youth wing, which is like super radical.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: It's always a bad idea.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: It's so radical that even the AFD is thinking about breaking it up and setting up a
33:33
SPEAKER_01: new youth wing,
33:34
SPEAKER_01: a separate one.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Which would just happen again.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: But that's the problem is these people feel emboldened.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: They're like, it's not just me.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm not the only one who hates foreigners.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess these extreme...
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Political parties,
33:47
SPEAKER_01: one thing one can hope for is that there's enough infighting that they actually
33:50
SPEAKER_01: just sort of like self-destruct.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: Which is usually what happens.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:53
SPEAKER_02: that's part of the argument of allowing the AFD to get into some kind of power is
33:57
SPEAKER_02: that that's what usually happens.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Remember the pirate party?
34:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: What happened then?
34:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, infighting.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: And they didn't really know what they were about.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: And then when it was time to find out what they're really about,
34:07
SPEAKER_02: it turned out half of them were dirtbags.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: They were about liquid democracy, man.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: They were about no copyright laws.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: That was the problem.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: They were actually not about anything.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: And then when it came time to actually do something,
34:17
SPEAKER_02: they couldn't do it because they weren't about anything.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: They were into open source and digitalization, which is not something Germany is so great at.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: They had some good ideas, but then there were a lot of creeps in there.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Politics is all about implementation.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: I think we've reached the end.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Is that it?
34:37
SPEAKER_02: It's a wrap?
34:38
SPEAKER_02: Our bumper music, our theme music and our bumper music is by...
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Yours truly.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Maurice Frank.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: I thought maybe you had a weird band name.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a weird, like, your alter ego when you're sitting at the Mew keyboard?
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: It's not a Mew keyboard.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: It's like this plug-in.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: It's like a Spotify plug-in.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: What was your band name?
34:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to tell it.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to say it.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: It's too embarrassing.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Is that bad?
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: All right.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Maurice.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andrew.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andrew.