It’s not the first time that I read an article with such a title, but it still surprises me how people really believe that the most expensive stuff they can buy is also the best on the market (and I am not talking only about food). Just newly a test of organic food showed that organic tomatoes are not only more expensive than non-organic, but that they are not tasting any better either. Then why should I buy them?

A pretty strange thing occured to me when travelling to Romania a few years ago. A friend of mine invited me to dinner. I must add that I already had the chance to taste Romanian food before and it is delicious – especially the cheese. To my surprise that evening I was served Dutch cheese (which is actually not really tasty). The reason: It was the most expensive cheese one could buy in the supermarket. And due to his hospitality my friend wanted to serve his guests the best he could buy, thus he ignoring the much cheaper but tastier Romanian cheese. During the rest of my journey I was astonished to discover a society where foreign products are always better than the local ones and where the most expensive product is per definition the best product. Well, this is at least good news for foreign companies with highly priced products that intend to enter the Romanian market

The coverage of the media in Germany is still strange to me. As an example I will take the current news regarding Iran. Some time ago the US declared Iran as one of the “bad” countries in the world. I remember well the storm of protest in the newspapers against this statement. Now France is pushing hard against Iran, talking about war and trying to convince Russia to take it’s side. Germany also decided to take harder steps and threatens to introduce further sanctions against Iran. If the US would do the same, you could read hundreds of articles about the US imperialism and its interest for oil (or any other resource). Now, when some European countries are making pressure on Iran, nobody talks about economic interests or aggressive politics against sovereign countries. Strange, isn’t it?

As I haven’t been to the US during the past years, I can’t really argue if what Al Gore did was really worth a Noble prize or if this was just a nice public relations gag from Oslo. But it shows how serious some people see the problem of global warming.

To me this discussion is pretty funny. Lately I read that the ozone hole above Antartica suddently shrunk by 30% in just a year – and certainly not due to measures taken against global warming. 30% reduction in such a short period of time is a totally natural process – according to scientists. Then why were the past increases of less than 10% a climatic catastrophy created by mankind?

When I arrived for the first time in Germany almost 20 years ago, it was a very hot and dry summer. Well this year it was another cold and rainy summer and I had to scratch ice from my windshield already in September (last year it was in October and the year before almost in November) – that’s what I call global warming! Ah, by the way: Did you know that just a few thousands years ago Europe (and North America) was almost completely covered by ice? And it all melted away without the “help” of human civilisation. Maybe we are not the only factor in global warming and maybe the effect of our costly efforts to stop global warming can be neglected on a global basis. Maybe?

Does your child want to become policeman or secret agent? Then you should think of relocating to Germany. He may start earning money while spying for the government after school.

Sometimes I ask myself what politicians are really paid for. Now it’s official: entertaining the population with ridiculous ideas. Germany’s federal minister for family affairs is the best example. Her newest proposal is to use children as decoy to detect illegal sales of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, etc. What next? Fighting illegal prostitution with babies?

If you thought Germany is a free country for entrepreneurs, then think twice. According to a news article I read a few days ago the German government is planning to prohibit unwanted investors from buying German companies. But how is unwanted defined? And who will define it? Chinese state funds will probably be on the list of unwanted buyers. But what about Arab funds or US companies? If this is not strange enough, then what about the planned clause that a deal may be declared unwanted even 3 years afterwards? This reminds me of despotism – change the rules of the game if you don’t like the game anymore. Well, this finally proves that German companies are definitely not fit enough for global competition – what other reason could there be for such protective measures?

What can you expect from this blog? Well, the main purpose is to tell you my thoughts on interesting topics. I’m sure that you might have a different view on some of the issues I’ll discuss, that’s why I invite you to leave your comments. I hope that the topics I’ll choose will be interesting or provoking enough for you to enjoy reading this blog. For the time being I live in Germany, you can thus expect to read more German topics.