GER politics thread

[Catfish]

Ah, Aeroe (sorry for the wrong spelling)
We have docked in Aeroeskoebing several times when sailing in the baltic, beautiful island, people and houses

But it has been 15 years or so since the last visit. Very nice to see that they have become self-sufficient "in a way". With this i mean you need materials, and technology, that have not been found, or invented there (thinking of rare earths for batteries, the plastice, ball bearings and generators for the wind turbines, and so on).
Still, a road on the way to become independent, and self-sufficient

[Skybird]

Interesting, the key sentence is when the mayor (I think) said: "The benefit stays on the island." And he said something like "Everything looks better when you own it." I applaude both sentences.


I doubt however that the model can work on a bigger scale with bigger distance covering and higher levels of industrialisation.



Sweden has its many trees, they can afford to burn wood for heating, because they plant 1.7 trees for every tree they cut, and have huge forests and a tiny population for a big country. Denmark has the "windfarms" nearby to where they are needed, especially on this island, but all of Denmark is a small country. Austria has mountains and thus plenty of small waterfalls and rivers with cascades and thus plenty of opportunities to win electric power formt he waterstream.


Germany has none of that. It plans huge windparks in the Northsea with the power being needed in the highly industrialised production hotspots in the far south. The loss of power to get it down there, is around 65-75%. So 3-4 times more power needs to be produced - or bought - to actually get the net ammount of energy that actually is needed, isn'T that insane? Cutting trees to burn them fpr heating we cannot afford, too amny people and too small and little forests. Waterpower will always remain a minor plaything, our rivers are not strong enough for that, there is not enough elevation change. And solar?


Well solar. I have seen it with my own panels how easily solar power can be messed up by the weather not complying. Not to mention time of day. Storing it in batteries again causes huge losses. And this month, November, with this year showing normal winds again (different to the excessive winds and storms in 2020 and 2019) and overcast skies, renewables contributed only an itsy titsy tiny fraction to the overall energy mix, with 40% of the demand i total power needed to be imported for expensive money for France and others. Over the year, Germany sometimes exports energy, yes - but if you compare import and export totals, the imports outclass the exports clearly, and our exprts are chepaer to have than we have to pay for the imports, and even a doubling of solar panels on house roofs over here would not change anything in that signficantly. Our great green leaders simplyl cannot do math. No wonder when you see how they have brought down the German schools nt he alost 30 years. Today a headline in a newsmagazine: a study comparing 18 countries in the West for how their schoolkids got along in the homesschooling during Corona school shutdowns, Germany scored - last place, 18th. The study said nowheere are the deficits as hige as in germany. Some time ealrier, German students showed a terrible decline again in their competence in math in international, global comparison. Well, a population that cannot calculate anymore, cannot criticise criminal finance policies, so that may be welcomed. Problem is you see more and more peoplele in politics as well who cannot calculate.



And next year our last three remaining nuclear powerplants go offline.



Their missing capacity for years to come will not be compensated. Gas powerplants I do not expect to be build soon, due to their now lacking attractiveness for investors: they have all reasons to fear that they can write off their investements some years later, becasue is, by will of the EU, only an interim solutioin of a very few years: too few yeras as if the porfits possible in these few years could compensate for the investements, and France now wants to make them even more unprofitable to boost its nculear energy. Gas powerplant investors will not see their money coming back, not to mention: a profit. Nobody goes into an investment that has a limited lifetime written on it, by political will. So, the taxpayer has to pay them, if they are ever to be build, and it will be a verym very deficitary "investement".



The frnehc aölweay spose as beign oh so European. Nonsense, they are not at all, for them Europe, or better the EU, only is a vehicle to transport the French will for dominance to the top of the political food chain. Germany, so very busy with its feeling of guilt over the past, simply does not understand this unconditional will to power. Its too toothless and too kind.



So, France pushes hard to have nuclear and gas being labelled as regenerative energy by the EU, but it wants criteria beign very light for nuclear, but maximum criteria and obligations and definitions for gas so to make building gas powerplants very costly and unattractive. That way they want to earn the reputation of pushing for green energy while maximising Europe's and especially Germany's dependency on french supply of energy so that they can dictate the prices and keep Germany on a short line. Now that Germany finally, finally!, is as weak as they always wanted it to be, they have no intention to ever let it grow strong again. An extremely sinophile new German chancellor with great sympathy for collectivising European debts at the Germans' costs for France is the one big chance in a generation, thats why they close ranks with Italy currently so very obviously. With the Greens in germany wanting to make many debts for their green deal policies, now is the time to implement some wounds and weaknesses into the German industry so that german economy never can dominate as clearly as they did before, since decades. The key branch of Germ,an industry, cars, already has recieved lethal wounds. France can dominate the EU, and Germany pays for the French dominance. that is the French plan, since decades. Germany- cannot even count from one to three, and to plan over decades is expecting hopelessly too much from it. That would need strategic vision and forsight, and in that German diplomacy since always has failed miserably. Gemran diplomacy hgas somehtign is assumes to be better: it means things well. Aren't the Germans kind by heart?

[mapuc]

^ The solution may be think local while being national.
Let each town or area be self-sufficient with energy supply

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

^ The solution may be think local while being national.
Let each town or area be self-sufficient with energy supply

Markus

Exactly, and not just regarding energy - taxes in general! Power back to the local regions, away from national centres and supernational organisations. When i must pay taxes, i want the money being spend in my vicinity, my sphere of life, my living place and beyond that only on those purposes that I order, support, want to see being conducted. I do not need my taxes being channeled to some foreign people four hundred kilometers away in some other regions capitol and there being distributed on purposes that have no link to my own life and place anymore. Why must I pay for the building of some bridge in Bavaria? if I want to go to that foreign place, I am ready to pay for the purpose and services there - but not by taxes, but fees to be paid the time when I order or use them. Like you pay a parking ticket when you enter a poarking house. a Maut system, so to speak. You pay on use, you do not use it - you do not pay.

Needless to say, career politicians living of other peoples' money and political parties in general hate such thinking like mine, no mmatter their ideolgocial backgorudn, they hate it. It eradicates the basis of their own existence. It renders them useless and unneeded. They are men in the middle that push their wonderful presence in there without there being any need for them,a d for this they dmand money. Hilarious! The world would be much better off without them, it is them not being the solution to problems, but problems' origin in the first. At least very, very often.

Administrative districts should not be bigger than what any citizen in them can overlook and oversee. Thats the "local" in "local regions". That is transparency. The only transparency worth to be called that.

National taxes and administrative structures are not popular in Greece for one reason, a historical one. The ancient city states did not raise taxes. Paying taxes was seen as a gesture of submission and a form of tribute payments to a tyrant or foreign power. So in the end, pride was what stood against allowing a tax system. Instead, the rich and noble class - the only ones who indeed were free citizens - was expected to come up for paying for keeping and maintainign the absic city interests, from building and maitnain in frastrructure to waging war and defending the city. In return, it were these paying classes who had a say in administring the city, if they qualified.

But today every Peter and every Paul contirbtuign nothing to anythign can rais edemands and insist to be heard as if he ahd anythign to say.

No, I want fair deal between equal sides. Give and take. Rights and obligations defined by a contract. Contract violations being sanctioned. Contracts being signed fully voluntarily. Not one side being allowed to break contracts at will and not being held liable, instead getting away with it! Every state is a criminal cartel, every state inevitably leads into growing tyranny, no matter the ideological founding myth.

To me, a state has only one purpose to exist for: caring to defend what is defined as the outer border of the "tribe's" living space. Everythign else, every other function that states today claim for themsleves, could be - better - done and more economically done by private business with which customers - citizens - sign treaties that include passages that the parties have certain rights and certain obligations, and if the service offering company fails to deliver, it can be sued for damage compensation. Not at a state court, but another company, one that is specialising in jurisdiction. Police is security, can be done by private companies. Crime is dmaaging priofiuts, it is in the itnerets of bioth such policing and juristical companies to think about how to keep it low and design their service accordingly. even mor so when there is market competition. The state of today - has no competitor thats why states usually offer the lousiest service for the most expesive price and then show how terribly awful business entrepreneurs they usually are.

Schools, must not besome state's schools, can be schooling as a service provision by a company.

People pay no taxes. People pay for services and products. Prices for items of common usability, road maintenance for example, get priced into the prices for products, and the planning is done not by a state, but by interested business men/companies who need an infrastructure for shuttling around ressources, products, reach consummers, allowing consumers to reach their shops. The state needs roads and access to private property for only one purposde: to get to people and collect taxes from them.



A state is not needed in any of this. A poltical party is not needed in any of these. Only defence is something of a size too huge probably to leave it to regional companies. But if a central government refuses to defend borders like the German does, for exmaple, then such a state and government has forfeit its right to exist and its claim for loyalty. The problem is, the state makes rules and submits others to them, but if he breaks rules himself and fails himself in delivering what he raises taxes for, he cannot be held accountable. the citizen is always disadvantaged, the system is by design corrupted.

In the end, nothing has changed since the feudal system of the past. Citizens are subjects being owned by states. That simple it is. "Small is beautiful". Power away form central natiuonal govenbrment, and back to the local regions.




BTW, nice place you seem to live in, that siland in the film looks like a place poretty much laid back. When i was a boy, 12 yera or so, we had some days on Bornholm durign summer vaccation, and we bought many, many of those oretty, colourful candles that are beign amd ein denmark so much. At kleats back ion those times. I liked being there, just that we had terribly many mosquitos. And I did not know that "Tak" means not "Tach, Tag, Tach auch", a German greeting (Guten Tag), but means "Danke/Thank you". I thought the Danes were kind people but a bit crazy running around greeting others endlessly and repetitively all day long.

[mapuc]

Skybird-I would not for all the Gold in the world move from this island.

Except during summertime. we are 6000 habitants on this island in summer we are around 70-80000 or more. Most of them around 70 % is Germans

Sometimes it can be too much

Back to discuss German politics and what else happens in your society.

Markus

[Skybird]

Yes, its all about overwhelming man- and firepower.

[mapuc]

Talking about energy supply in the future

Using a graphene sheet that measured 10 microns across, the researchers said they were able to produce about 10 microwatts of power continuously, without any loss. So it does sort of raise the possibility of a clean and somewhat limitless source of energy.

https://www.iflscience.com/technolog...in-the-future/

Markus

[Skybird]

The new government has been sworn in this morning.

I have a worse feeling than usual when I think about politics. Germany wil change, of that I am quite certain. But not for the better. Too many ideological freaks aboard.


The big surprise is how fast the colation forming went. I expected it to last long into the next year. If somebody would have told me after the election "before christmas", i would have laughed.

[Jimbuna]

Olaf Scholz has been been sworn in as Germany's new chancellor, formally taking power after Angela Merkel's historic 16 years as leader.

He promised he would do all he could to work towards a new start for Germany.

As she left the chancellery, ending a 31-year political career, Mrs Merkel told her former vice-chancellor to approach the task "with joy".

His centre-left Social Democrats will govern alongside the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59575773

[mapuc]

One may wonder how far this coalition will work together before there will be scratches in the cooperation between these three parties.

Markus

[Skybird]

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:


------------------------
For the first time in 16 years, Germany is being ruled by a Social Democrat. With 395 of 707 votes cast, the Bundestag elected Olaf Scholz as the new Chancellor on Wednesday. As expected, Scholz made it smoothly in the first ballot, even if he received 21 fewer votes than the new government coalition of the SPD, Greens and Free Democrats has MPs.

The 63-year-old is the ninth Chancellor of the Federal Republic and, after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder, the fourth SPD politician in this office. After his election, he and the ministers of his cabinet were appointed and sworn in.

Scholz ’predecessor Angela Merkel received a standing ovation from the MPs; only the representatives of the right-wing alternative for Germany demonstratively remained seated. The resigning Chancellor followed the election in the visitors' gallery. Those MPs who were not vaccinated against the coronavirus sat on another platform. They also had their own voting booth.

In the short term, dealing with the unvaccinated is arguably the biggest challenge the new government faces. Scholz is in favor of a general compulsory vaccination and expects that this will be introduced in February or March, the Greens see it similarly, and the FDP leader Christian Lindner has meanwhile also swung into this line, for which he was scolded as a "faller" .

The current infection process can be traced back to the unvaccinated, Scholz had declared shortly before his election as Chancellor and in this context also contradicted the frequently expressed thesis that German society was divided on this issue. In fact, according to surveys, a clear majority supports the introduction of a general compulsory vaccination for adults. Nevertheless, the government could soon be faced with the question of how to deal with a vocal minority, which is likely to become even more radicalized, should vaccination actually occur.

A coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP is a novelty in Germany at the federal level; their creation is a consequence of the new, more confusing majority relationships. All three ruling parties are trying to dispel the impression that it could be an alliance of convenience: They emphasize that they want to govern together for more than just four years. This is remarkable, at least in the case of the FDP, as the Union has so far been seen as the political force that is programmatically closest to the Liberals.

In fact, it could prove difficult for Scholz to hold the alliance together for even one legislative period. Conflicts threaten to break out, especially in social and financial policy: Projects such as citizens' benefits, basic child benefits or the construction of 100,000 state-subsidized apartments per year will cost money; at the same time, the liberal finance minister Christian Lindner will endeavor to be the guardian of budget discipline.

There could also be frictions in foreign policy: the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stands for a tougher course towards Russia and China, while a more yielding stance is widespread among Social Democrats, but also in the FDP. On the day of Scholz's election, there was a first clash about foreign policy: This is controlled “especially in the Chancellery”, said the SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich; a Green MP wanted to see a degradation of the foreign office in it.

Further handling of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is supposed to bring Russian gas to Western Europe bypassing Ukraine, could prove to be a touchstone for the new government; Baerbock is against putting the line into operation, the SPD is for it. How Berlin will position itself on this issue in the future is likely to have an impact on its relationship with the USA - and with Germany's Eastern European neighbors.

The tense relations between Germany and Poland are unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future anyway, because in the dispute between Warsaw and Brussels over Poland's handling of EU law, Baerbock will hardly appear more indulgent than her social-democratic predecessor Heiko Maas. The fact that Berlin is now expressly aiming to create a European federal state should not only meet with reservations in countries such as Poland and Hungary.

The first tests at the ballot boxes are due for the new German government in the spring: A new state parliament will be elected in Saarland in March, followed in May by Schleswig-Holstein and the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In Germany, regional elections are always viewed as a plebiscite about federal politics. Should one or more coalition parties be punished by the voters, Scholz could face stormy times.
------------------------------

[Skybird]

Group portray of a new government. Notice the big painting - or smearing if you want - on the wall behind them. I find it extremely symbolic and representative for German political and national self-understanding. Vague. Nebulous. Unclear. Foggy. Lacking contour, indentification, contrast, orientation.

[Jimbuna]

Hopefully they will do better than the current shambles we are stuck with.

[Rockstar]

Not sure if this really belongs in German politics thread.

It’s getting crazy.

Can’t remember where I mentioned the new German government may no longer host NATO nukes opening up the possibility of moving them closer to Russia. I thought if true and that were to happen it would certainly seem like a little overkill against a country that has a GDP less than the state of New York.

Now I ran across some intel saying NATO has developed and stationed in Mainz-Kastel a battery of 4,000 miles per hour; 1,750 mile range Long Range Hypersonic Missiles which can reach Russian targets in under 21 minutes.


“Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable … The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” — John F. Kennedy

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Not sure if this really belongs in German politics thread.

It’s getting crazy.

Can’t remember where I mentioned the new German government may no longer host NATO nukes opening up the possibility of moving them closer to Russia. I thought if true and that were to happen it would certainly seem like a little overkill against a country that has a GDP less than the state of New York.

Now I ran across some intel saying NATO has developed and stationed in Mainz-Kastel a battery of 4,000 miles per hour; 1,750 mile range Long Range Hypersonic Missiles which can reach Russian targets in under 21 minutes.


“Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable … The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” — John F. Kennedy

Reading you comment made remember this Danish article
(Translated of course)

"
RUSSIA WITH STRICT REQUIREMENTS FOR NATO
Russia demands that NATO abolish a
promise to Ukraine and Georgia that they
two countries can one day become members of
the Western Defense Alliance.
Moscow also wants the NATO countries
does not promise to place weapons in countries
which borders Russia and which can
threaten the security of the Russians, writes Ritzau.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rejects the Russian demands.
Every nation has the right to choose
its own course - also concerning the
security agreements as it will be one
part of, he says.
"

Markus