During a Formula One race in Sochi Bernie Ecclestone was sufficiently impressed with Col. Putin to suggest he could run both Europe and America if he could find time in his busy schedule.
Bernie didn’t specify what made the good colonel’s schedule so busy, probably deciding it would be impolite to suggest that his host’s time is mostly taken up with ripping off his own country and attacking his neighbours.
Col. Putin is indisputably very proficient in those areas, but he isn’t a natural administrator. Few Russians are – organisation, enterprise and discipline aren’t among the nation’s most salient strengths.
Now the Germans in general and Frau (Madam) Merkel in particular are different. They know how to run things efficiently and profitably.
Their secret is eschewing cottage industries and organising production on a grand scale – this without any detriment to efficiency.
Of course Germany isn’t immune to economic force majeure, which is why her unemployment rate is now the highest it has ever been since Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard got a grip on the economy in 1950.
The force majeure directly responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs is called the EU. You see, the Germans decided to do what Bernie thinks Putin could do better: run Europe, before proceeding to take over America as well.
Alas, while Germany was running Europe, Europe was running up debts and, like any loving vater, Germany had to assume responsibility for the debts of its wayward children. Hence the 4.5 million unemployed.
But if any country can solve such problems, Germany can. And my friend Angela, with her housewifey touch, knows how to run a household.
Thus at least one German industry is already showing a spectacular growth. Since the previous government legalised prostitution in 2002, the number of German sex workers, to give them their official name, has grown to 400,000 and the whole industry is adding €16 billion to the country’s economy every year.
Germany has sprouted a number of industrial-scale brothels, some occupying 12-storey buildings, with each floor dedicated to its own thematic motif.
Many have introduced innovations based on the concept of American all-you-can-eat restaurants. You pay your €100 at the door, and the delights of all 12 floors are yours without any limit on consumption. To make the transaction cost-effective, customers no doubt use various stimulants, but that’s no one’s business other than their own.
Angie certainly doesn’t care. All she wants is that the thriving concerns function according to the legal requirements imposed on all German businesses. Specifically, they are expected to pay taxes and provide the statutory package of benefits for the employees.
In return they are treated like any other business, which extends to their having access to job centres’ data bases.
Now these establishments are much more rigorous than their British equivalents. Working hand in glove with the social services, they follow a simple and, this being Germany, ironclad rule.
If a centre’s referral produces a job offer, a person unemployed for a year or longer has to accept it or lose half of his unemployment benefit. Another refusal, and he loses the other half. If he proves to be so picky, he can starve for all the job centre cares.
That’s how a 25-year-old woman found herself in a spot of trouble. Having lost her job as computer programmer, she registered with a job centre and began to wait for offers. To stack her bets she also listed other qualifications on her CV: before learning programming the young lady had done stints as waitress, bartender and hostess.
Germany’s unemployment being what it is, no offers came for a year. At last the centre sent the woman a long-awaited letter, saying that a potential employer felt that her profile fit the requirements expected to fill a vacancy.
The woman hopefully contacted the prospective employer and was invited for an interview at what she thought was a night club. It wasn’t, not quite.
The outfit turned out to be one of those licensed bordellos that comply with every legal requirement and are therefore granted access to employment data bases. At the interview the woman was politely asked to demonstrate her qualifications by taking her clothes off and playing with a vibrator.
That she indignantly refused to do and stormed out in a huff. The very next day she was informed that, since she had declined a legitimate job offer, her unemployment benefit was thenceforth cut in half.
Without waiting to lose the other half in a similar situation the girl sued, or rather tried to. However it was explained to her that there were no grounds for a lawsuit since the job centre had followed both the spirit and letter of the law.
And, following the reforms introduced by Madam Merkel, if any woman under age 55 can’t get a job in her profession for a year, she is obliged to accept any job on offer, including that of a prostitute.
As far as the law is concerned, an employer seeking a prostitute of either sex is no different from one looking for an engineer or a nurse. No honest work is immoral, the labourer worthy of his hire and all that.
Moreover, a job centre attempting to bar a bordello’s access to its data bases breaks a law and can be punished for it. “Why should I be denied access?” asks, rhetorically, Tatiana Ulianova, the Russian owner of a brothel in the centre of Berlin. “I pay taxes just like any other business.”
Quite. And when her German colleague Ulrich Koperkoch was indeed kept away from the data bases, he sued, won his case and was awarded sizeable damages.
All those stories date back to 2005. Since then Madam Angela’s government has been running a propaganda campaign to the effect that sex services are no different from, say, physiotherapy or massage.
As a result many young women, regardless of their marital status, no longer stick to their outdated prejudices and gratefully accept any job going, emphatically including prostitution.
Really, Angie has missed her true calling. Still, the opportunity isn’t lost irretrievably. Sooner or later she’ll retire from politics, and running a knocking shop could offer her a chance to remain a valuable member of society.