GER politics thread

[Skybird]

A loan from Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the state development bank, has raked in about £350million (€393m) from interest payments since 2010, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Sensation! A creditor gets interests paid for lending a credit!

Scandal! The higher the risks for the creditor, the higher the interests!

Do we want to talk about how many billions and billions in credits Germany guarantees for within the framework of the infamous TARGET system?

I do not want to talk about it. The numbers Germany has in the fire and most likely will never get back, are so high that they make me dizzy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARGET2

In easier words, it works like this: a country's any bank asks the German Bundesbank to buy in their name for example bonds. The Bundesbank does, and "hands the bonds over", signs them over to the asking bank. However, in the TARGET framework, the asking bank does not pay the Bundesbank, but signs the liability over to the ECB. The ECB then confirms to the German Bundesbank that the ECB owes the money to the Bundesbank. The ECB does not pay the Bundesbank, it just agrees that it owes the Bundesbank the money.

As stupid and self-damaging as it sounds - this is all it is about. You better beleive it, it is dumb, it is stupid, it is insane, but that is what it is about. Bank A gets the bonds, the Bank B (ECB) makes a promise it never can be called on, and the Bundesbank has had the costs and now has the outstanding payment and stands there with empty hands.

This is one way how you have states financing other states' debts without calling the game by its real name, since it is forbidden for states to finance other states' debts by the dictate of Lisbon.

Minimum estimation for the German demands to the ECB on grounds of TARGET2: almost 900 billion Euros. Says the Bundesbank. Independent critics of the Euro and EU economy calculate even higher numbers, but German politicians do not want the public to know this.

TARGET 2 liabilities have the potential to blow the Eurozone into a million tiny bits of pieces.

Major profiteers of this insane system are the net receiver countries in Southern Europe. Especially Greece, Italy, Spain.

And now a dubious yellowpress newspaper with the suspicious word "Express" in its name ( I call condition yellow at least whenever a newspaper is named "Express-something") calls Germany out for the KfW having gotten interests worth 370 million for outstanding credits since 2010...? I'm shocked!

Meanwhile, Greece has gotten another Eurozone credit. To pay back its debts.

Mapuc, lend me 100 Euros. You get it back, plus 5 Euros, okay? By the end of the year. Because by the end of the year you lend me another 150 Euros, from this money I then can pay back those 100+5 Euros to you, and have 45 Euros left to live next year. You will then need to lend me another 100 Euros, to bring me over the year, and by the end of the year again 200 Euros, so hat I can pay you a higher interest and can pay you back your money you lend me and live the year after. I also need to pay out my other creditors, so please, would you mind to additionally lend me some more money? Maybe 100 Euros - additionally? Its just a credit, you get it back, don't worry, I have my honour, I make an oath if you want. Promised!

I also want to own an ounce of gold. If you buy it for me, you could send it to me then. I tell Neal that he owes you that money in the name of subsim forum solidarity. He will confirm this to you that you have claim towards him. He will not pay you out of course, but you have the claim confirmed then. that is good. It helps to keep things in order, black on white. You then have a written note of evidence that confirms that Neal owes you money. You see, no hooks in that, its all in order!

Don't make yourself look like an idiot, mapuc - better say No! I beg you!

Because I will demand you to pay me back the interest I promised you for your credit. And the credit(s) you gave I will never pay you back anyway. Not without you lendign me mor emoney first to do so.

You get the problem, yes? The problem is that Greece' debt cycle is out of control. And us creditors - we will loose most of the money we gave if we agree a cut of debts, and we will loose money if we agree to give more credits. They money we have given - dozens and hundreds of billions - is gone. We will never get it back already.

P.S. Add to this TARGET2-mess the formal credits Germany has paid out to Greece, and others. Then we rerach deep into the trillions of outstanding money. Germany has debts with other nations as weoll, but the point is, these nations owe us even more money. If you calculate it tid-for-tad - then we are the big loosers. Thats why the final calculation gets delayed and delayed. The show must keep on running. By illusions, lies and cheats.

This is what Kynes meant by his famous and often quoted reply to a reporter's question: "In the end we are all dead."

[mapuc]

Thank you Skybird for this well put answer to my link.

I have no excuse for my bad short-time memory, ´cause when I read the article in Danish I came to think of you and this thread and I wondered how your response would be as an German to these accusation the article seem to put on Germany.

I'm not an expert on economy. I know how to balance my own budget and how to pay interest if I have taken a loan-But Budget on a country scale-is way out of my knowledge

You are right, thou bigger a loan is thou bigger is the payment for the interest. 5 % of 1 billion os a lot more than 4 % of 1 million.

Markus

[Skybird]

Its all beyond hope. It is denied that "wasted money" means "wasted", means: "loss", it instead gets called "lending". Throw money out of the winodw or burn it in your backyard, and it is not gone forever, no, it is a "credit". Call interests paid for risks not interests, but cal them "social injustice" or "lack of solidarity". Call expropriation and devaluation not expropriation and devaluation, but call it "negative interests" (this time of course neither socially unfair nor "antisolidaric", but "a strong sign for Europe").

"Financial products"? LOL Where is the "product", show it to me!? Financial products are debts collected, painted new, and called as something different, anything just not "debts". This package of somebody else's debts then is what you pay money for to get it as your "financial product". You buy other'S debts. Your "product" that is.

Pension fonds? The same: packs of states' notes of indebtness that get mandatorily - enforced by the state by monopolistic authority - mixed with some stocks of real world assets (companies), most part of pension fonds however are legally demanded to consist of state bonds - so that the state shall have the right to force buyers of this formdiable "financial product" to lend the state money.

Buy such fonds, and you always get forced to buy plenty of toxic waste along with some minor candy.

It gets even better. Bonds are notes of indebtness. What happens if you buy bonds, then, especially worse: bonds of the state you live in? You place a bet there, and a very stupid bet it is. The state needs to pay back this credit you give him, plus interests (okay, no interests anymore these insane days, sometimes you even have to pay the state for the privilige of lending it money....) . The only way to poay back these debts is to either blackmail more protection money (taxing the people), or to take up another credit to use the money from it for payiong your credit and interests.

In other words: if you buy state bonds, you pay for your bet that you will either get expropritated even more via higher taxes or via devaluation of money, since every credit handed out increases the ammount of Giralgeld, book money (over 95% of the money created and poumped into the markets, is not "printed money", but stems from the business banks handing out new credits). Now I ask everybody - is that a clever bet...? You bet that you loose money - and for this bet you pay if you lose, and you pay if you win.

Simple thoughts for longterm investment strategists.

Why is it that credits handed out increase the ammount of book money, Giralgeld? Because banks must place 1% of the credit value they grant their customers with the ECB, as a "material" security. I pay 100 Euros in, on my bank account. Actually I hold no deposits whatever anymore on my banking account, but for the sake of the story... : If the bank places these 100 Euros at the ECB, it then can hand out 100x100= 10000 Euros in credits to other customers, money that the bank must not have (fractional reserve banking logic), and thus creates newly out of the blue. These 10 thosuand Euros then get into economic ciruclation, and sooner or later gets paid in to banska gain. Banks place thesem at the ECB, and then can hand out another 10000x100 Euros in credit: becasue I have handed over a 100 Euro note to stock up my bank account, the banks can create 1 million Euros of new "money"!! An that is just two iterations - it contnues, it goes on, and on, always multiply with 100. The bank ahnds out a credit: 1% of it only it has to store at the ECB as a safety.

The fractional reserve banking system is one of Satan's most loved toys to ruin the world. Itds a snowball system, and looks harmless only at the very very early beginning. But it isn', it is the devil'S masterplan to crush the economy.

This all cannot end well, it is impossible. Main guilty actor: the state and its politicians, and the caste of alchemistic "economists". They are the cyanid of this world.

[Skybird]

Don't get gotcha'ed! This article is about the horrific dangers posed by DHMO, a chemical substance of great risks:

LINK

Quite... revealing...

[Catfish]

i see it like money as well as capitalism (as we call it) is becoming.. not obsolete, but changing in meaning and appearance. Full employment is a thing of the past, enough machines and devices becoming capable of doing the simple stuff. So we have to think of alternate models of how to live.

[ikalugin]

Or the people who do not have capital would just starve and die.

[Skybird]

"Money" tokens are so much older than capitalism.

You cannot have complex, advanced development and production chains, without money. No mass production wihtout complex production chains. This is what makes things cheap so that more and more people can afford them. No mass production - no supplying of 8, 9, 10 and more billion people.

An indispensable tool money is. Juist a tool, no worth in itself. But an indispensble tool. And that si what makes it precious. You cannot eat gold, yes. But you can eat what gold can buy, can help to produce, can help to conserve and keep cold to prevent it from rotting. No complex production lines - no refrigerators developed in the first.

Without money, our specialisation would have stopped on a low level, so that some of us still would pick coconuts, and the others would still catch fish, and sometimes we would barter fish for coconuts and coconuts for fish. Feeding and clothing billions this way? Forget it.

Unconditional basic income? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody pays for it - just not the one eating it.

[August]

Interesting article in the WSJ regarding German energy.

I'd be interested in getting our German forum members opinion on the accuracy of the claims it makes.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany...oil-1500326174

[Skybird]

The German energy system has been turned into a mess indeed.

Indeed it is becoming the more expensive for the end consumer the more renewable electricity is produced. The market logic that something should become the cheaper the more of it gets produced at the lower costs, has been intentionally reversed.

The evil at work here, are subventions of several kinds. Subventions that were so terribly misused and misunderstood that they also helped to directly finance the Chinese solar panel industry - that used this invitation and financial support from the German tax payer to now having crushed the German solar panel industry - just a couple of years ago global market leader! - completely: the last German panel producer has gone bancrupt just some weeks ago.

Laugh at us, August. You would be right to do so.

However, we feel so great about it. We once again demonstrated our good intentions. That si what counts. Not effective deeds, but to have it meant well. That well-meaning excuses every failure.

Regarding emissions, the more it becomes obvious that we cannot meet our timetables and keystone criterions, the higher we push up the limits, denying the truth to ourselves.

I have said it many times before, and I stick to it: the Germans are hysterical romantics. Their sense for reality is close to nil. They pay much money for even just an empty box if only you print "eco" or "bio" on it.

The climate goals we set also serve as a stimulus plan for certain branches, cladding for example., and these branches lobby incredibly hard for their wanted profit raises. We clad buildings not to save energy in net efect, we clad buildings to save jobs in the cladding industry. The more we lag behind our intentions, the more bitterly the state and the authorities move to increase them even more, and to enforce them even more. Paying victims for this, may it be house cladding or electricty bills, are the people. Cladding does not work as claimed, the energy savings are far below the rosy promises example calculations, and mostly do not even compensate for the costs of cladding (I know it from first hand, from several affected people who bought private housing. Their energy savings are almost non-existent, they would need several decades to compensate for even the costs of cladding). Plus the damages to the houses themselves from moisture not escaping, rotting, lacking air circulation through the wall - houses must breath... - , fungi infection and algas etc. Plus the costs for dumping these cladding materials after a couple of years - and replacing them once again! Most used cladding materials are toxic waste. Greetings to the Greens. And then the visual ruining of house facades, especially older houses like today they are no longer build.

On oil, that is evil, of course.

Mind you, after Fukushima it was not the affected - the Japanese - moving first -, but most victimised and endangered felt the Germans on the other side of the planet - merkel was applauded for declaring Germany's opting out of nuclear energy within just - well, were it even weeks after the flooding? Merkel moved incredibly fast to declare the end of German nuclear technology expertise (some of the best in the world...). Now we are surrounded by old vintage nuclear plants in other countries who are older and more dangerous than ours were, and we even must order and pay for their power at times. The Constitutional High Court btw meanwhile has declared that policy and resulting laws for illegal meanwhile. which means the companies will be paid horrendous compensations - once again at the cost of the people. And some of our neighbouring countires complain that becasue Germany at times can no longer serve its energy demand by itself since it switched off nuclear plants, and orders energy from its neighbours, in these states the number of blackouts have increased. Long live the continental planned economy!

There are so many examples that could make you wanting to pull your hairs out.

Nothing wrong in investing into getting away from fossile fuel, don'T get me wrong. But the timetables we set up and the costs we accept to push them, are insane and extremely self-damaging. We are under the spell of the - completely arbitrary - 2.0°C threat. And if someobdy says we cannot keep it anyway - we reduce the value even more instead of taking a breath and rethinking what we are doing there.

Hysterical romantics. It explains German history since the era of the enlightenment - which in Germany was not really taking place, what Germany had instead became known as the era of Deutsche Romantik. Lets feel the world, the life, the air, the goodness, the idea! Rationally assessing things is too hard-headed and too cold-hearted for us.

And yes, like all of Europe, Germany as well benefits form the drop in oil prices caused by American fracking. Fracking also seems to have broken the OPEC cartel's dominant position. We hate oil, its our collective civil duty to do so. But we depend on it, still.

---

The point is I can recall times when the German powergrid was the most stable in europe, no other European state had so low blackout rates as Germany (cannot recall I ever had one, except one extremly cold winter when the electricity pylons broke), and energy supply was absolutely safe. Blackouts simply did not happen. Never. Its just one and a half decade ago or so... Today our green energy ambitions get beefed up by electricty supplies from risky and old nuclear reactors in France, Belgium and Eastern Europe... But we hide that from ourselves and keep up the illusions!

[Catfish]

Germany has not "failed" to reduce CO emissions as written in this article, this is simply not true. Some of the attempted target numbers are almost impossible to reach now, but moving the emissions to power plants instead of using single internal combustion engines in cars, only shifts the emissions elsewhere. Also, conduction loss. Using your electrical car in the city means polluting the environment a hundred miles away instead. Nothing gained, overall.

Becoming independent of oil is a long-term task, but it has to be done at some point. Nice to have cheaper oil now for a while, but apart from burning our reserves and setting free the CO that has been hidden from decay for billions of years (providing us with free O2 in the atmosphere), the reserves will be depleted at some point. We can of course sit down and wait for it to happen, and then run around like headless chicken with no plan in the drawer, but my ideal would be to get away from oil long before this happens. Oil is too valuable to be burnt, if you think of plastics and elastomeres.
Cheap oil will destroy a few new energy companies, and prolong the process of independence, but it will be done.

Switching over to electricity immediately right now is nonsense, and will not be done, for obvious reasons (apart from the automobile lobby's influence).
Lots of problems, some can already be overcome, but there's more to happen in the near future, technology-wise. There are lots of new high tech branches developing, and they have begun pushing the economy. Our "weakness" is our strength.

The thing is if you do not think or dream about things, you will not be able to invent, and go forward.

[Skybird]

Since the attempted "coup" in turkey last year (of which i still think it was self-arranged by Erdoghan to create an alibi for his card blanche policy afterwards), 22 people with German passports have been arrested in Turkey on grounds of highly dubious, arbitrary charges, and without diplomats given them any access as demanded by internatonal laws and treaties.

As is being reported by the Bild Zeitung today, last month the great sultan offered the German foreign politics toyboy Sigmar Gabriel to exchange one imprisoned German journalist - in captivity without charges since half a year and without diplomats being allowed to see him - for two Turkish general who fled from Erdoghan to Germany and asked for poltical asylum.

Its official now: the German prisoners are hostages. Plain and simple. Erdoghan acts like just any little street gangster would.

The latest low in relations has b een marked by the Turks now prohibiting Germans to visit their soldiers on the airbase at Konya. The Germans already had withdrawn their recce Tornados from Incirlik airbase, now the Turks ban them from seeing their AWAYS specialists based at Konya.

Recent events and new arrests of a German come together with Turkish accusations of German companies supporting terrorism (Gülen, that is).

The Germans now mull a sharpening of travel warnings for Turkey, and say that protection of investments in and travels to Turkey can no loner be taken as granted. This hits Erdoghan at his most vulnerable point: economy, and money. It also seems to be possible that the Germans will enforce a decision in NATO to take a tougher stand on Turkey. Germany sends one third of the specialists and crews of all of NATO'S Awacs platform, not just in Turkey. If the Germans fall out of that personell plan, it will not be a shosatopper for NATO'S revcce capabilities, but it will create waves and the need to adapt to the sudden loss of quaolified perosnell. It seems, the German patience with Turkey is slowly coming to an end. Gabriel also announced that state guarantees by the the German state for investments in Turkey ("Hermes") will be "reconsidered".

However, Merkel only slightly sharpened her words. Slightly. Not to damage any precious sentiments. She leaves it to Gabriel (SPD) to do the dirty part of the work. After the coming elections (which now by no doubt she will win once again) she then can go back to business as usual with Erdoghan, and tell him it was not her CDU party, but the SPD that tried to smear him.

Personally, I think the German sshould leave Turkey completely, and now. No German crews for AWACs planes left in Konya. Of course that long-since fogotten Patriot battery to protect poor Erdoghan from Syrian air raids also have to be pulled out. I would like to see a general travel warning for Turkey, and a cancellation of airflights from and to Turkey by German and Turkish carriers. This maybe will hit some of Erdoghans enemies as well - but after all it was the Turkish population voting him into office, and it is the Turkish people to be held respoinsible for repairj ng the mess then. Creatging economic unrest and dissatisfaction is the biggest thgreat for Erdoghan's rule, maybe. If for no other reason than that there is no other realistic option left anyway. If the Turks are not willing to raise in riots and get rid of the AKP, then they must no longer be our concern, but can go to hell.

[Catfish]

^ raised that subject before, which is why i was so enthusiastic by Theresa May's 42 billion pound weapons deal with Erdoghan [/sarcasm]

We cannot afford to do what we want while lots of Germans are being held hostage by Erdoghan. Let diplomacy do its thing, and deal with that later.

Then, millions of Turks living in Germany..

[Jimbuna]

One quick and potentially quite effective non-military action would be to stop tourism in Turkey from German nationals.

[ikalugin]

Outright or how we did it?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

We cannot afford to do what we want while lots of Germans are being held hostage by Erdoghan. Let diplomacy do its thing, and deal with that later.

Diplomacy?

Then, millions of Turks living in Germany..

They can fly via other carriers than Turkish and Geman ones. And lets not forget, mayn of them, probbaly a majoirty, supports Erdoghan. And integration is a failure with the majority of them for sure.

Obviously, tourism is the archilles heel where to strike back. Then the "Hermes-Bürgschaften" by which the state provides guarantees and securities for investments in Turkey done by German companies. Then, stopping cooperation with - if not even prohibiting - DITIB.

Last week it became reported that the Turkish intelligence agency operate so aggressively in Germany that Turkey is the only "Allied" state that has the MAD and the BND operating a special counter-intelligence service just trying to fight off the Turkish intrusions and operation in Germany. These aim at persecuting Turkish exiles critical of Erdoghan, Gülen, and trying to infiltrate the office for the protection of the constitution. Last, we must send back all Imams sent from Turkey when they try to cross the border, and we have to send out all that already are here. Most of them do not even speak one word of German!! Turkey was allwoed to get extremely far-reahcing special rioghts and ciodntions inside GeGermany. These have to come to an end. Erdoghan sees German visitors in Turkey as potential hostages, obviously, and Germany as an Osman province already at his disposal.

So stop investing there. Stop making holiday there. Stop tolerating Turkish state influence in Germany.

Heck, my first voyage to Turkey was in the early nineties, with a Belgian crew back then. Already then I was alarmed and knew that this German-Turkish relation would end nasty sooner or later, and that conservatism would come back to Turkey. Back then, the name Eroghan was on nobody's note block - and still I felt the mess coming. The ammount of latent racism and nationalistic haughtiness to be found in the areas outside the tourist metropole,s was alarming already back then. From all Muslim countries I ever have been to, sometime staying quite long, Turkey has been not the most dangeorus but the most unpleasant experience. The most dangerous in those years, was Algeria. The most pleasant - and surprising and diverse - experience, was Iran: very mixed, but among the to be expected dark things so many good experiences as well. Its a different people there.