Nordstream

[Rockstar]

Tensions have flared up between the US and Germany over the construction of Nord Stream 2 pipeline – a 1,225-km long ‘offshore’ pipeline constructed between western Russia and Germany. It runs parallel to the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea. US concerns with the pipeline are to do with the growing European dependence on Russian natural gas exports and the latter’s propensity to use energy as a geoeconomic weapon against its customers. Moreover, the pipeline is likely to undermine the current position of Ukraine as the main transit route for Russian gas to Europe. Therefore, the US is concerned that the pipeline would negate the only geopolitical leverage that Ukraine has over Russia. It is also estimated that Ukraine will be losing more than $2 billion in annual transit fees if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline goes on-stream. For all these reasons, the US has imposed sanctions on the companies involved in the pipeline construction in order to interrupt the project.


https://www.e-ir.info/2020/08/12/opinion-the-us-and-nord-stream-2-geopolitics/

[Kapitan]

Well the Europeans have two choices neither they want to take, either pipe in Russian gas or ship it from the Gulf states and risk shortages.

In reality Russia has the largest proven natural gas deposits in the world and even the USA has and in some cases still does import gas and oil from Russia, not to mention Russia is an OPEC member.

Ukraine is its own worst enemy in some cases they simply just want to live on western handouts, they had so much going for them in the 1990's that could have built up into what Poland or Hungary is today yet their political class squandered just about everything in a true soviet style and now they are playing the poor many of Europe.

And before anyone asks yes I have been to the Ukraine (many times) yes I have seen how they do business and yes I have employed many Ukrainians.

[Skybird]

The Us has very strong own financial interests to sell its own gas with itw frakcing industry seriuously struggling and in parts already collapsing, 20 bancruptcies in one years speak volumes.

The Europpean posiiton is quite clear, and I repeat: the European position. The Americna claims are rated both in Berlin and in brussel as violation of internaiton law. With the ecpetion of Poland and the Baltic states, EU members have given their green light to Germany.

The Poles are angry because Germany counters Polands own project of using the EU pipeline grid project of "Baltic Pipe" for transporting Norwegian gas via pipe from Denmark to Poland, so that then Poland could enjoy transit fees and control over the gas when it gets distrubuted further into Europe. It puts Poland into a storng position against Brussels (nice opporutnity for the US to practice divide et impera). The idea of the Polish and American planners was and still is to enlarge this grid with terminals for US gas tankers landing their gas in danish terminals where it then gets processed and fed into Baltic Pipe'S pipelines, and to Poland.

The US does not tell the full story. They have all their own horses in the race. That they are oh so concerned for European security, is just a strawman argument.

economically, the American offers never were competitive. The gas they hope to deliver additionally, is from frackign and thus is heavily intoxicated with chemicals of which it must be purified bewfore further processed. This additional work needed to the already additional energetic expenses to cool the gas down so that it is liquid and actually can be transported via ship. ecologically, American liquid gas via ship is a very bad thing. The quality is also bad, compared to Russian or Norwegian gas, but the Norwegians are set to shut down their business in the Northsea in 2050. End of 2019, US price demands for their gas laid 30-40% over world market averages. So their offer is not only for bad quality , but it is hopelessly overpriced as well. Which explains why their additional selling desires are met with zero interest amongst possible European customers. We just tried, and failed to find any demand. There is none.

Thats why the US has chosen to play the bullying card. Selling by force, so to speak.

Problem is: Brussels and Berlin have learned some important lessons in the past four years. The US is not being trusted anymore. Also, the EUropean energy mix has been diversified more than the Us likes to talk about. Russian gas losses can cause problems - but they cannot gag down supply security and existentially threaten Europe anymore, even more with renewables slowly but constantly growing in share.

Its worth noting that the US accuses the Russians

- of economic blackmailing that Russia has not done to Western Europe in the past even at the height of the cold war: they have always honoured their trade agreements,

- while Washington itself already practically acts the way it accuses the Russians of wanting to do in the future. All the blackmailing and threatening and intimidating that the Rssians are accused of for doing in the future - the US already carries ou right now.

Legal experts of the EU as well as the German Bundestag have rated the US behaviour as violation of international law.

If Washington wnats the Ukraine to get money, they can send dollars instead of expecting us to pay Euros for them.

And Poland pisses Germany at every opportunity and plays the Nazi card several times per year, it takes more money from the EU (and Germany) then the next 3 net receivers alltogether. So why would I care for the, quite the oppopsite: I rather prefer us to be able to put the thumb on the pipe flow, than them.

Finally it is to be said that in Europe giovenrment have started to relaise that the Ameeicna focus has started to shift away from Eruope already longer time agao, already under Clinton. Obama also has an amazoin lack of deeper interest into Europe. The focus moves towards China, and that means Europe becomes less relevant fo Washington.

[Skybird]

Well the Europeans have two choices neither they want to take, either pipe in Russian gas or ship it from the Gulf states and risk shortages.

In reality Russia has the largest proven natural gas deposits in the world and even the USA has and in some cases still does import gas and oil from Russia, not to mention Russia is an OPEC member.

Ukraine is its own worst enemy in some cases they simply just want to live on western handouts, they had so much going for them in the 1990's that could have built up into what Poland or Hungary is today yet their political class squandered just about everything in a true soviet style and now they are playing the poor many of Europe.

And before anyone asks yes I have been to the Ukraine (many times) yes I have seen how they do business and yes I have employed many Ukrainians.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html


https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts


Germany's threat to energy production is not so much a shortage in oil or gas imports, but cloudy days and still air. We lack the huge forest and small population of the Swedes and the huge water-powerplants capacities of the Austrians and their Alps.

Also, the systematic destruction of dark&cold-start-capable reserve powerplants to me a an absolutely major concern (thinking of a nation-wide days-lasting power blackout).


That we close down nuclear power and handed away German expertise in nuclear powerplant design, is one of the biggest failures of the Merkel. Unforgivable. And costly in compensations to the industry.

[Rockstar]

As for Poland's opinions about its neighbors I'm sure it does get old but can anyone really blame them? As you say they've been bullied by both the Soviet Union and Germany even long before Nazis showed up. Nordstream2 isn't anything new, Poland knew this was coming 15 years ago long and didnt like it then either. Long before anyone accused them as undeserving because they are 'far right'. But Germany did it anyways and as you say bullied its neighbors and took what they wanted. Regardless of the reasons nobody should be shocked when they get called names or when a nationalist movement rises in Poland.

Its amusing as hell watching European States scramble for positions of power, stabbing each other in the back and making treaties with once arch enemies as it reorganizes itself. All the while trumpeting how wonderful it is to be in the Union! The U.K. got smart and back stepped itself right out of that mess. lol

[Skybird]

The last few witnesses of that time on all sides are currently dying out.

Lets put it this way: there is no Polish man or woman who is to put claim agaiunst me of my mum or my father, or 99,99% if not more of the Germans alive today (one quarter of them now with "migration background, btw).As well as nobody of toda'Ys lv89ng Poles can accuse almost nobody of today'S living Germans of having done anything to them, ever. What generations before that did: let it be a thing between the now dead.

I never felt any obligation to apologize myself to anyone for thignb sthta came to an end a quarter of a century befor emy birth, three years before the birth of my mother, and ended at a time when my father was a one-year old.

You see, the Polish attacks are jjst fake moral arguments. They want more money once again. Legally, all treaties and obligations agreed to by Germany, have been honoured. Ther eis not a simplke open bill, and that is true fore Greece as well. Its all about trying to milk the stupid Germans more. Like Polland and Hungary have stopped to block the eU on climate deal once Poland got promised additional money.

Its politics, and that means its never about morals, but always about moneymoneymoney. And power, of course.

[Kapitan]

Unfortunately this is the reality of the EU and the reason why I don't support it as you note Skybird there is a lot of infighting and blaming Germany, I too Blame Germany for somethings some policies that came from the EU and forced through directly enhanced the German economy the common steel policy for one this lead to a massive decline in the UK Steel industry.

The Current EU just wants to be one country with each country being a "state" similar to the USA style, but each "state" will be monoeconomised exactly like how the Soviet union tried to do.

And for me no thank you I am glad I voted to leave and I fully stand by my vote and i would not change it, and I truly do hope that I get to see the break up of the EU in my life time.

[Rockstar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4AOjdDlrOo&feature=emb_logo



Transcript of above video from 2011 (yes that's 19 years ago)



https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/agenda-germany-prepares-crucial-bailout-vote



The German population is a little skittish on what is going on with the eurozone debt situation right now and something that the German government has yet to do is sit down, address the population, explain exactly what is at stake and why the Germans are doing, why the German government is doing what it is doing.

The problem is you cannot have that conversation in modern Germany. Ultimately the eurozone debt package, this EFSF-2 as it is being called, is about making sure that Germany has full control over the bailout mechanics. This is to give Germany the type of political control that they have sought for the last three hundred years of European history.

How do Germans have a public conversation with themselves about dominating Europe? That is a problem.
Its not a problem you just completely avoid the conversation by accusing the other guy of "strangling the German businessman", being far right nationalists (Poland) or lazy (Greece). Ol' Joe Goebbels would be proud.

[Catfish]

Thank god you did not yet hear about Südstream, to take control about the universe :yeah:

[Skybird]

The creditor asking for some safeties and controls over the money he pays out for the debts of others.

How unreasonable...!.

And here I thought that interests depend on the risk involved for the lender.

Target 2 Saldi, anyone...?

Originally the Maastricht treaty completely banned and forbid that states finance other states. Via the ECB, it is established fact since long time, I would even say the ECB was boosted for this as the primary purpose, and Gangsterlagarde has brought this ECB policy to lightspeed now. And now, with corona, all German dams have broken and all German resistance has been overwhelmed, and the collectivisation of European debts, long wanted and demanded by the French and Italians, is coming. Fantastic for net receivers and debtors. Bad for creditors and net payers.

There is a reason why high-qualified mid-age German experts and academics beign taxed like crazy take their families and kids flee germany in significant numbers, being replaced with slightly bigger numbers of uneducated, underqualified often integration-rejecting social netto receivers. Over a quarter of Germans now have a migraiton background, the quota of social wellfare receivers is rising, the number of netto payers into the system is declining.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.achgut.com%2Fartikel%2FHightec h_deutschlands_abschied_koreas_aufstieg

This all will not go well. Not for Europe, not for Germany. I see no realistic scenario how this could not end in anything else than a total civilizational collapse of the Occident. The monetarian problems lead to economic problems, the economic problems lead to social problems, the social problems lead to Boooom.

Read David Engels: Que faire? (German: Was tun?). Its a bitter, sobering read. And a very personal and eloquent read as well. And it is a very realistic, adequate read. All is lost. More than what is in this little book we cannot do anymore. Parents will not want to read this: but denying a realistic view at it all - how then could they prepare their children for what is coming down on them?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/3956211421/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

20-40 years at best I think until this continent will fall into civil war and fir, wipijg out what is left of the occident and its cultural heritage. America manmages to destroy that cultura heritage all by itself and without a war, Trump is the evidence. I hope I die, preferred peacefully, before it gets to that, in 20 years I will be 73. A bit too old and too weak to care for survival under war conditions.

[Catfish]

[...] And here I thought that interests depend on the risk involved for the lender.
Exactly. Brexit anyone?

Target 2 Saldi, anyone...?
Originally the Maastricht treaty completely banned and forbid that states finance other states. [the rest written here was BS]
Exactly. To get money from the EU even for the most reasonable goals and intentions, it demands a written-down explanation what the money is intended to be used for. Unfortunately. Italy has already been "denied" 42 million Euros of help because they forgot to file an application. And this will happen again in 2021, due to the chaos they call the italian govenment.. Cause you see, 27 other countrie want at least to know where their money is being used for.
Like in Hungary, where Orban received millions from the EU for improving public lighting in exchange for LEDs, and gave the money to his son (being immediately promoted to "national light representative"), who used it for more intersting things like women, cars and generally giving a fk for anything.
[...] This all will, not go well. Not for Europe, not for Germany. I see no realiostic scenario how this could not end in aythign else than a total civilizational collapse of the Occident. The monetarian problems lead to economic problems, the economic problems lead to social problems, the social problems lead to Boooom.
I hope your rope is strong enough, you know with this pessimism of yours it could just break :O:

[Skybird]

I am realistic, and how these things will end, is inevitable already now. Europe falls, plain and simple. The remaining question is not about the "if" but about the "when". And the follow-up question is whether in some centuries the culturla heritage of the european historical tradition, the occident, will be remembered and maybe in parts restored again, or not. I absolutely agree with David Engel's assessment that if - if - it will happen at some far away future, it most likely will happen not in Northern, Western or central Europe, but Eastern Europe, since people there still have a much, much stronger sense of historically grown cultural own identity. France, Germany, Scandinavia, Southern Europe all are set to become Islamic over time, and that means a dark era is ahead of this continent, and it will be the collision of Islam and foreign capitalistic predators that will shredder the cultural sphere that Europe was completely. With he economic decline comes social instability, and civil unrest, and civil war. States' authority already now meets the limits of their power and what they can enforce against growing sub groups of the population. The European states' power is in decline. Lobbyies and organised crime do their parts to hijack it. States will either turn right into police states and get reigned by brute force and totalitarianism, or they become victims of civil disobedience and civil unrest, and finally, resulting from that, civil war, if not international wars.


The eU will achieve right the oppposite of what it claims it wants to accieve. And the signs are clear and wide and visible on the walls, since years already. They get ignored, the course is still maintained, and so deeper and deeper into the storm the EU sails. Latest symptom of its total disconnection from reality is that on the height of the corona economic crisis the eu has nothing better to do then to push alreayd unrealistic (and relatively useless!!!) climate goals to even more ambitious and unrealstic limits. Corona and Climate goals before were not difficult enough, no, things must be made much, much worse!



This fixation on CO2 is something I just can bitterly laugh about. There are very different agents to think about if it comes to climate warming, by two digit factors as potent as CO2, and present in higher quntiies. Especially ground-bound methane hydrate is on my worrying mind, but there are more.



IDIOTS.



Evolution model does not say a species survives by turning back the hands on the clock and return earth to earlier conditions. That cannot be done. The model states that that species survives that dynamically ADAPTS to the ever changing environmental challenges and conditions of the place it lives in. We focus on wanting to turn back the climate. We waste our time and money on this. But we should instead invest that time and money on learning how to get along in a much warmer world. Becasue it will get warmer, EU climate policy declarations hin oder her.



My prediction: at some time in the near future it will become obvious that the new climate goals cannot be met. Then they will announce even sharper, even more ambitious climate goals. No new pattern that will be, of course: its old.



Well, IDIOTS. What else to expect.