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Cat Mattress posted:This is the exact opposite of dumb. It's not as dumb as before, but it is still pretty dumb. It makes things better if you travel somewhere or have an extended stay for work or study, because you can now still watch the stuff you pay for with your subscription. It doesn't fix the underlying problem of the segmented market. It still is the case that I can't watch a lot of stuff under the new rules because I'm a citizen of Austria and they only bought a license for Germany. Or the same with people living in Eastern France and streaming stuff in Germany. Often it isn't even a question of licensing, but simply nobody even thinking about Austria and Switzerland, parts of France, Italy, Denmark etc. also speaking German. Same is true for pretty much <any European language>/<any European country>. Google is for example one of the most annoying culprits. "Oh, Youtube Gaming launched in German, y'all! Sorry, we didn't really roll out an App for anywhere outside Germany despite our announcement I guess, it really only being a switch to toggle, but nobody pressed it!". Stuff should be available throughout Europe period, not segmented and region-locked. Ideally of course world-wide, but Europe would be a great first step. GaussianCopula posted:[quote]FAS: Ist die schwarze Null evangelisch? Not a big fan of Schäuble naturally, but good on him on dunking on the idiotic interviewer. Decius fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 06:48
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So a short Eurogroup update one Greece: In July Greece has pay up again, which means we are back to the old game of chicken where Greece demands stuff, the Eurozone says "gently caress you" and Greece is stubborn until the deadline is reached until they agree to whatever the Eurogroup demands to get the money. This time the Greece friendly observers (mostly Keynesians) were giddy to see a fight between the IMF and "Berlin" (basically all of the Eurogroup except PIGS) because the public perception was that the IMF, who needs to be on board for the Bundestag to allow any further reimbursements, demanded debt relief and "Berlin" only wants to grant debt relief after the program has concluded, which is in 2018. Well that's not what happened. Schäuble und Thomsen quickly came to an agreement where the IMF join the program but not disburse any money until 2018, while the Eurogroup would state that they are going to look into debt relief in 2018, at which point the IMF would spend a token amount of cash to satisfy that requirement. This of course was very bad news for the Greeks, who campaigned on debt relief now at home, and vetoed the deal at the last moment - only to agree to it in 3 weeks because otherwise they go belly up. Suffice to say, the observers were not happy that they did not get what they wanted, as can be seen in these tweets https://twitter.com/MMQWalker/status/867265755515170816 https://twitter.com/economistmeg/status/867067538634682372 https://twitter.com/MMQWalker/status/866938916443750400 Decius posted:It's not as dumb as before, but it is still pretty dumb. It makes things better if you travel somewhere or have an extended stay for work or study, because you can now still watch the stuff you pay for with your subscription. It doesn't fix the underlying problem of the segmented market. It still is the case that I can't watch a lot of stuff under the new rules because I'm a citizen of Austria and they only bought a license for Germany. Or the same with people living in Eastern France and streaming stuff in Germany. Often it isn't even a question of licensing, but simply nobody even thinking about Austria and Switzerland, parts of France, Italy, Denmark etc. also speaking German. Same is true for pretty much <any European language>/<any European country>. Google is for example one of the most annoying culprits. "Oh, Youtube Gaming launched in German, y'all! Sorry, we didn't really roll out an App for anywhere outside Germany despite our announcement I guess, it really only being a switch to toggle, but nobody pressed it!". To be fair, Youtube Gaming is the worst and if you watch gaming streams you should go with the only right choice, Twitch.
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May 24, 2017 08:16
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Pluskut Tukker posted:I'm afraid I can't help but retain a soft spot for Asscher, who as a minister at least tried to do something about the excessive flexibilization of the labour market and the race to the bottom in labour standards, even though his efforts largely ended in failure. Also, my dad has been a PvdA member and voter for almost all his life, though a desperately disappointed one for the past few years, and he certainly means well for everyone. So to me it's a mix between good and bad and I think some of them do deserve some credit. I don't doubt that some of them genuinely want to do good, but sometimes social democrats' blindness to what is happening is really unbelievable. The PvdA roughly has two wings, the most powerful one is the hardcore third way exemplified by Dijsselbloem or Samsom, then there is a marginal more leftist group such as Thomas von der Dunk (and maybe Asscher, marginally) who still support PvdA even though they don't appear to agree with third wayism. I think the former are simply scum who know what they are doing and do it for their own profit, so that's not difficult to understand. I don't really understand the latter. Can't they see what their party has become, or are they waiting for a Corbyn style turnaround or something?
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May 24, 2017 08:18
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GaussianCopula posted:Suffice to say, the observers were not happy that they did not get what they wanted, as can be seen in these tweets Yes, that's the European correspondent for the Wall Street Journal thinking Greece got a rough deal (he's right). Shibawanko posted:I don't doubt that some of them genuinely want to do good, but sometimes social democrats' blindness to what is happening is really unbelievable. The easiest way to understand this is to consider it as an extension of Dutch-style coalition politics, except within parties instead of across parties, and the factions trying to push the party in their preferred direction.
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May 24, 2017 08:55
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https://twitter.com/franceinfo/status/867295265199464449 Emmanuel Macron wants to extend the state of emergency until November 1 (it's due to end on July 15).
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May 24, 2017 09:30
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Pluskut Tukker posted:True, though it would be worse if Rutte and Buma managed to assemble a majority coalition without any representation of the (center-)left. But unfortunately as a result of the election the Netherlands is a rightwing country now, so any party on the left is going to have to make some hard choices. The Netherlands has been a right-wing country for decades now.
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May 24, 2017 10:39
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Kassad posted:https://twitter.com/franceinfo/status/867295265199464449 Nostradamus told me the state of emergency would finally end on Bluvember 47th in the year 493 of the Gubulmuf Era, during the 173th Republic.
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May 24, 2017 10:55
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Schauble called Mario Centeno the "Ronaldo of the Ecofin" Either this is some elaborate german joke or he was drunk, no way that's 100% sincere
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May 24, 2017 11:09
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Orange Devil posted:The Netherlands has been a right-wing country for decades now. There is no hope for leftism if one of the countries that does the most income redistribution in the world and has one of the lowest poverty rates and highest living standards still gets written off as a rightwing country.
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May 24, 2017 11:17
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Pluskut Tukker posted:There is no hope for leftism if one of the countries that does the most income redistribution in the world and has one of the lowest poverty rates and highest living standards still gets written off as a rightwing country. Yeah Netherlands does a lot of things right but on the other hand https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/oct/19/tax-avoidance-in-netherlands-becomes-focus-of-campaigners So that kind of makes up for everything else
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May 24, 2017 11:20
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orange sky posted:Schauble called Mario Centeno the "Ronaldo of the Ecofin" It's not sincere or honest, but it's becoming more clear that Centeno is high on the list to get the Big Job at the Eurogroup. In the end is more about optics than anything else as the President of the Eurogroup probably needs to go to a southern European country after Juncker and that Dutch moron, but Spain and Italy remain on the Deficit Shitlist, France already has a high position on the Commission, and lol Greece. Meanwhile Portugal is an Austerity Success Story(tm) afetr getting out of the excessive deficit procedure and showing positive growth now.
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May 24, 2017 11:28
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orange sky posted:Yeah Netherlands does a lot of things right but on the other hand I wish we weren't a tax haven, but being one is not really a significant part of our national income or wealth. Per this Dutch source ,facilitating tax avoidance nets us 1.8 bn euro and 2,200 jobs, which is really a rounding error compared to the size of the Dutch economy. It's disgraceful how much tax you can avoid by settling in the Netherlands for how little you pay here though.
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May 24, 2017 11:31
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Electronico6 posted:It's not sincere or honest, but it's becoming more clear that Centeno is high on the list to get the Big Job at the Eurogroup. In the end is more about optics than anything else as the President of the Eurogroup probably needs to go to a southern European country after Juncker and that Dutch moron, but Spain and Italy remain on the Deficit Shitlist, France already has a high position on the Commission, and lol Greece. Meanwhile Portugal is an Austerity Success Story(tm) afetr getting out of the excessive deficit procedure and showing positive growth now. Let's make a deal: The next Eurogroup president comes either out of Portugal or Greece (for all I care you can call Varoufakis back into service) in trade for Jens Weidmann becoming ECB president. PS: The gap between rich and poor is not increasing since the financial crisis, at least in Germany and minimum wage is not the reason http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php/558945 GaussianCopula fucked around with this message at 11:48 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 11:40
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Pluskut Tukker posted:I wish we weren't a tax haven, but being one is not really a significant part of our national income or wealth. Per this Dutch source ,facilitating tax avoidance nets us 1.8 bn euro and 2,200 jobs, which is really a rounding error compared to the size of the Dutch economy. It's disgraceful how much tax you can avoid by settling in the Netherlands for how little you pay here though. Yeah and from what I understand most of the people there don't think that's a good thing. It's more of our fault by allowing our companies to establish themselves there than the Netherlands', but it's still sad that something like 18 out of the biggest 19 companies in the stock market in Portugal have their headquarters there.
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May 24, 2017 11:53
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orange sky posted:Yeah and from what I understand most of the people there don't think that's a good thing. It's more of our fault by allowing our companies to establish themselves there than the Netherlands', but it's still sad that something like 18 out of the biggest 19 companies in the stock market in Portugal have their headquarters there. Don't worry they'll all move to Hungary or whatever now that it's even cheaper there.
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May 24, 2017 11:55
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Pluskut Tukker posted:There is no hope for leftism if one of the countries that does the most income redistribution in the world and has one of the lowest poverty rates and highest living standards still gets written off as a rightwing country. It is a right wing country in the sense that all those things are slowly but surely going in the not-so-left direction and have been doing so for the past decades. The golden era of universal healthcare is over and costs for the (poorer) individual has been slowly but surely creeping upwards. The housing market is completely gridlocked and without capital in the bank you are mostly just hosed. The primary train company, which is a private company on paper but all its shares are owned by the government has been found to be evading Dutch taxes via an Ireland-construction. Twice (2015 and 2017). We were a liberal country in the positive sense of the word. Now we are a liberal country in the negative sense of the word.
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May 24, 2017 13:21
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Simply put Dutch politics has had the same neoliberal slant as most of the West.
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May 24, 2017 13:29
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https://twitter.com/bastienhugues/status/867362560856780800 The Canard Enchainé claims another victim: Richard Ferrand, minister of Territorial Cohesion. As the head of a not-for-profit insurance company, he rented building belonging to a company owned by his wife... except the company didn't legally exist yet, nor did it own the building in question. The wife then created the company with a capital of 100 euros (this is not a typo). Then, a few months later, she took a 402,000 euros loan to purchase the building (easy: she had a secure rent to pay it back). The company Ferrand managed also renovated the building to the tune of 184,000 euros. It's all legal but lol. Ferrand also hired his son as a parliamentary assistant over four months (sounds familiar to someone else with a name starting in F?), for just under 6800 euros in total. This is where the picture in this tweet comes in. It's a quote from someone in Ferrand's entourage to justify hiring the son: "I urge you to take a tour in central Brittany. It's not easy to find an eager young person to work for 5 months, who knows how to read and browse the Internet". Nice!
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May 24, 2017 14:12
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Kassad posted:Ferrand also hired his son as a parliamentary assistant over four months (sounds familiar to someone else with a name starting in F?), for just under 6800 euros in total. This is where the picture in this tweet comes in. It's a quote from someone in Ferrand's entourage to justify hiring the son: "I urge you to take a tour in central Brittany. It's not easy to find an eager young person to work for 5 months, who knows how to read and browse the Internet". Nice!
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May 24, 2017 14:31
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Kassad posted:https://twitter.com/bastienhugues/status/867362560856780800 lolz France You kinda wonder if the German politicians since Strauß are just lazy given that there is so little overt corruption in Germany, with Rent-A-Sozi (politicians attending events with business people for money paid to a party agency) being peak corruption. and here the quote of the day https://twitter.com/BMF_Bund/status/867370150093357056
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May 24, 2017 14:31
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German politicians just make up degrees instead.
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May 24, 2017 14:52
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"We must spinach shaft, what we then so good ground tail woolen. Also in whale year blubber that so."
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May 24, 2017 14:52
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Cat Mattress posted:"We must spinach shaft, what we then so good ground tail woolen. Also in whale year blubber that so." haha
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May 24, 2017 15:04
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Kassad posted:"I urge you to take a tour in central Brittany. It's not easy to find an eager young person to work for 5 months, who knows how to read and browse the Internet". Britanny's education also has the best results nationwide.
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May 24, 2017 15:15
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Pluskut Tukker posted:There is no hope for leftism if one of the countries that does the most income redistribution in the world and has one of the lowest poverty rates and highest living standards still gets written off as a rightwing country.
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May 24, 2017 16:06
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Hambilderberglar posted:Ok. Great. When will we stop enabling Shell's environmental dumpster fire in Nigeria? When will we stop enabling shitbags like Donald Trump from using our legal system to deprive other countries of millions (billions?) in unpaid taxes? Closing your eyes to it by saying "We only make 1.8 billion a year and employ 2200 people" is disingenuous. How much does it cost others? How many people lose healthcare and pensions to vultures who use us to hide their gains? Why isn't the narrative that if it's that little money and jobs, that we should quit doing it?
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May 24, 2017 16:19
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Collateral Damage posted:I think that's the point Pluskut Tukker was making. The Dutch economy gains relatively little from harboring tax dodgers, so there's not much to lose from stopping. Indeed, i'd happily throw all those people out of work at the stroke of a pen, first because it's immoral to be stealing other countries' tax revenues, and second, because I want young people in the Netherlands to choose to become scientists, engineers, or artists, instead of highpriced lawyers working at the Zuidas in Amsterdam doing nothing other to justify their existence than pushing money around. So I'm glad our parliament forced Dijsselbloem early this year to drop his resistance to EU plans to fight corporate tax avoidance. But my point is also that our wealth does not depend on facilitating tax evasion, showing you can be a liberal/leftwing country without it (mind you, without our natural gas supplies I'm not sure how extensive a welfare state we would have had). Namarrgon is not wrong to say that there is a move to the right going on, like I also said about the result of our parliamentary election. But our institutions are still those of a social democracy and we should fight for them and claim them as a success for the left.
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May 24, 2017 17:30
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I'd be surprised if the answer was anything but "lobbyists told me to".
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May 24, 2017 18:55
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Indeed, i'd happily throw all those people out of work at the stroke of a pen, first because it's immoral to be stealing other countries' tax revenues, and second, because I want young people in the Netherlands to choose to become scientists, engineers, or artists, instead of highpriced lawyers working at the Zuidas in Amsterdam doing nothing other to justify their existence than pushing money around. So I'm glad our parliament forced Dijsselbloem early this year to drop his resistance to EU plans to fight corporate tax avoidance. quote:But my point is also that our wealth does not depend on facilitating tax evasion, showing you can be a liberal/leftwing country without it (mind you, without our natural gas supplies I'm not sure how extensive a welfare state we would have had). Namarrgon is not wrong to say that there is a move to the right going on, like I also said about the result of our parliamentary election. But our institutions are still those of a social democracy and we should fight for them and claim them as a success for the left.
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May 24, 2017 19:14
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Getting Dijsselbloem to drop his resistance to an early implementation of the new rules was, as I said, the work of the Tweede Kamer. I don't know where you get the idea that Rutte was involved (also, the actual responsibility for the Dutch tax service making deals with multinationals that enable them to avoid taxes abroad doesn't lie with Dijsselbloem anyway, since the tax service falls under the responsibility of the assistant secretary of Finance. Needless to say, that's usually a VVD member. I'm guessing Dijsselbloem as a finance minister likes the extra revenue though). Other than that, my basic position is that up until now, no matter how poo poo the PvdA has been and is, it's still about as good as you're ever going to be able to realistically get from a leftwing perspective. Up until now, the alternative for the PvdA would not have been a better, more leftwing PvdA or a coalition government of the left since the collective left in the Netherlands has basically never reached more than about 60 seats out of the 150 in the Tweede Kamer and so leftwing parties wanting to be part of government will always have to compromise. (finally, the reason to burn the Volkskrant to the ground is not its habit of printing PvdA shill op-eds; it's its habit of uncritically printing populist rightwing columns like those of Sommer, Eppink, and the like)
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May 24, 2017 20:46
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Sommer is garbage in human form.
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May 24, 2017 22:11
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Getting Dijsselbloem to drop his resistance to an early implementation of the new rules was, as I said, the work of the Tweede Kamer. I don't know where you get the idea that Rutte was involved (also, the actual responsibility for the Dutch tax service making deals with multinationals that enable them to avoid taxes abroad doesn't lie with Dijsselbloem anyway, since the tax service falls under the responsibility of the assistant secretary of Finance. Needless to say, that's usually a VVD member. I'm guessing Dijsselbloem as a finance minister likes the extra revenue though). If the PvdA is as good as it's going to get 'realistically', how does that square with we can be left wing without also enabling the plundering of other nations through financial trickery? Regardless of whether or not PvdA has to compromise, could they not have compromised on something that doesn't function as a vehicle for the pillaging of poor people? Can we not demand more of the them, or does that mantle fall on the likes of GroenLinks and SP to have principles so the they can 'govern' like the rational adults they claim to be? Maybe the problem isn't so much claiming the systems as a victory for leftism, it's whether the PvdA gets to call itself leftist anymore.
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May 24, 2017 22:45
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Hambilderberglar posted:You're right, I misspoke on cabinet, I still find it shocking given the composition of the Tweede Kamer that that happened at all. I think the implication of my position is that if GroenLinks were to replace the PvdA as the main centerleft party, it would likely end up taking largely the same positions and making the same kind of compromises as the PvdA did or, as has happened just now, find itself shut out of government. So they would be compromising themselves on the tax avoidance issue , and in return, get to do stuff like pass the amnesty for child asylum seekers (another issue where they seem to have bollocksed up the implementation, but that's not a problem specific to the PvdA), which you couldn't have accomplished from the opposition benches.You can pull government policy to the left far more through being in government than through staying out of it.
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May 24, 2017 23:31
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Kassad posted:https://twitter.com/franceinfo/status/867295265199464449 Also, coincidentally, Macron is trying to pass a new set of labour laws that would diminish worker's rights even further.
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May 25, 2017 01:50
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Today i learned that there are 22 candidates in Valls' circonscription. Including Dieudonné(and his suppléant is the guy who Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 07:15 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 07:08
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It's textbook splitting the left-wing vote, though.
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May 25, 2017 07:29
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I hope someone throws lots of flour at dieudonne, how is this huge tax evading antisemite fucker still free ?
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May 25, 2017 07:30
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Toplowtech posted:Today i learned that there are 22 candidates in Valls' circonscription. Including Dieudonné(and his suppléant is the guy who I look forward to Valls writing a "  but I honestly thought everybody liked me " op-ed after his defeat.
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May 25, 2017 07:50
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Kassad posted:It's textbook splitting the left-wing vote, though.
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May 25, 2017 09:33
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Other than that, my basic position is that up until now, no matter how poo poo the PvdA has been and is, it's still about as good as you're ever going to be able to realistically get from a leftwing perspective. Up until now, the alternative for the PvdA would not have been a better, more leftwing PvdA or a coalition government of the left since the collective left in the Netherlands has basically never reached more than about 60 seats out of the 150 in the Tweede Kamer and so leftwing parties wanting to be part of government will always have to compromise. I don't believe this is true by the way. It's never reached more than that level because the parties on offer are just not good enough. Almost nobody likes the PvdA, they always just got votes because SP was seen as too closed off and sectarian (and too oriented on Brabant while PvdA has always claimed the north), and the greens were seen as one issue and elitist. I don't think that there's an absolute limit on the amount of people you can convince to vote left, that limit is created by the incompetence of the parties and the lack of a convincing, charismatic leftist leader. I think PvdD would have a lot more potential if they would only change their dumb name.
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May 25, 2017 09:42
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