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They were deemed not organized and serious enough to run in the general election in 2009 and ran in a single voting district in the Berlin election last week where they were soundly beaten by a similar but not quite as silly party (Bergpartei). So I guess you can be proud that they didn't sell out I guess.
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Sep 26, 2011 07:20
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Having done the whole Work and Travel spiel as a farmhand and salesman in a commercial and domestic environment in Australia my admittedly short experience mirrors yours. I was pretty flabbergasted that people invited me into their homes on a regular basis when I was pitching charities in the suburbs of sydney.unixbeard posted:There's just a million little things like that. Also I have memorized the product lines for about five different supermarket chains. If i want a cheese I like I go to one place, a cereal i like its somewhere else, the tuna i like a different one, that's also something a bit different. Shops are also open on Sundays as well, l was used to being able to go grocery shopping at 10pm on a sunday night and I would go to one place and it would have multiple varieties of everything and high quality fruit/vegetables etc. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other its just one of the little things I had to adjust to. I get the suspicion you don't quite grasp the different kind of german grocery shopping. If you are looking for big stores like target you are not looking for regular supermarkets you are looking for unusually large stores like "Kaufland", those are not that common. From the sound of it you seem to shop mostly at "Discounter"s like "Netto", "Plus" and "Aldi", those are not proper supermarkets, as you mentioned they have a rather lackluster choice and very few brand products. Maybe you should have a look at supermarkets like "Edeka", "Reichelt" or "Kaisers", usually they are a bit more expensive but they offer a lot more choice, especially if you are looking for fresh products, their generic brands aren't that bad either.
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Sep 26, 2011 20:24
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ReV VAdAUL posted:The latter. While Germany profited immensely from exporting stuff to the European South / Periphery due to the increased purchasing power and borrowing ability the Euro gave their comparatively weak economies now those economies are deeply in debt because of the Euro essentially being a currency peg Germany is suddenly very upset with their spending habits. Having a free trade zone and a common currency that eliminates exchange rates is pretty much the most important part of the Euro. The theoretical increase in purchasing power actually is what created problems for Portugal and Spain in the first place, the cost of living increased massively while the wages remained stable, a few years down the line it's not unlikely to see the same thing happening in Poland. While this sucks for the moment, it's a thing that can and will be fixed once the troubled economies fully adopt the changed market. The reason Germany is upset with Greece in particular is because they flat out lied about their situation without having a contingency plan, which has almost nothing to do with the Euro itself and everything with a laissez faire approach when it comes to taxation and corruption. The reason Greece is such a problem is because the country is broken. The government can't communicate it's actions to the citizens and even if it could, the needed reforms not only in the governmental structure but in the basic way people live are so massive that it's nothing you want to rush into because somebody forces you (which is what's happening now because needed change was postponed for too long).
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Sep 28, 2011 06:34
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elwood posted:It reeks of hypocrisy though when (german) politicians feign outrage now even though they clearly knew what was going on. It's not as if it wasn't known that greece bend the rules. They all looked away and hoped for the best. Even when Greece had no choice but to disclose how much of a gently caress up their budget was, they still withheld information that would have revealed the full extent of the situation. While I don't think german politicians didn't suspect that the rabit hole was deeper than anyone was ready to admit, I think there was still a sliver of trust in the greek government left, calling them out on it would've probably done more harm than good from that perspective since the resulting fines and loss of market trust would've let to a clusterfuck similar to the one we see now, even if the situation wasn't as dire yet. So yeah, as always in EU-politics there is a lot of hypocrisy going on but Greece has done it's fair share to warrant some genuine outrage. It's going to be an interesting ride, loosing them is not an option since it would question the european idea, keeping them up indefinitely by throwing money at them would be absurd and getting them back on their feet is hard. If we (europeans) succeed in doing so it might shut up the polemic knuckleheads that try to paint the EU as a threat to Germany, when in reality we are the ones that profit the most.
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Sep 28, 2011 08:04
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Guys, chill out! Pretty much ignoring 50% of the population is not a big thing, it's the same as not having plumbers and carpenters on your list of candidates. http://kegelklub.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/liebe-presse/ Ever wondered why most politicians are lawyers or have a degree in something worthwhile? It's because they need to have a professional background that enables them to actually understand and write a bill. But I'm sure a 19 year old that just finished school will do just fine, in the end it's about passion and not about competence. http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/leben/0,1518,787114,00.html
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Sep 29, 2011 13:14
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Orange Devil posted:Consumer protection agencies, either government or non-government, and as far as I know it's less of a bitch to independently go the legal route as well. Deutsche Telekom just fucks people over like nobodies business. We literally have a seperate lawyer who has a full time job of just working on cases against them. I wasn't surprised at all that when DT went into the Dutch market they were fined millions by the government within a few years. The kind of poo poo they pull just doesn't fly there. Going the legal route in germany is not that hard either, it might or might not take longer than you are used to but usually companies are eager to settle out of court once you make it clear you are willing to go the distance. As far as consumer protection agencies are concerned the "Verbraucherzentralen" are the exact same thing and can hit companies with some rather nasty law suits. http://www.vzbv.de/go/ Also I have no idea what supermarkets you go to, I've never seen what you describe outside of budget chains. vvvv Remember the "Volksaktie"? The Telekom is amazing in it's ability to gently caress with people. hankor fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 21:35
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StrangeRobot posted:On the topic of illegal downloading and copyright violations: I watched a programme last night where they had a lawyer explain that if you have an unprotected or badly (WEP) protected WLAN (whoever decides when a network is appropriately protected is still open to wild interpretation) running at home you could be hit with the full force of the law if some stranger enters your network and does illegal stuff while there. So the logical conclusion is, apart from the common sense of securing your network for privacy reasons, that you're under a huge legal risk if you don't properly install your networks according to the newest technological standards. Welcome to Germany! That decision is actually pretty sensible in regards to consumers when you think about it. You are required to secure your WLAN with what is the standard at the moment you install it (currently WPA2) you are not required however to update it to whatever is the current standard. People that aren't savvy with computers will get preinstalled solutions from the providers and leave the sufficiently secure settings. Whoever fiddles around with his security setting either knows what he is doing or willingly ignores common sense. Contrary to popular believe we do punish people for being idiots which is a good thing. The real problem is with public hot spots where the only solution would be to register every user which is rather inconvenient. Quite frankly outside of a controlling body that issues ID's that can be traced to a single individual I have no idea how you could effectively do something like that. While I agree that you have the right to use the internet effectively anonymous, when you do something that is against the law you should be held accountable, this includes people that willingly or due to negligence support you in your actions.
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Sep 30, 2011 20:22
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Crossing the street while the light is red without endangering others? Fine. Crossing the street while the light is red not giving a poo poo if you'll cause a 17 car pileup? Fine if you are in a hurry. Crossing the street while the light is red and setting a bad example that might endanger children? gently caress you!
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Oct 1, 2011 23:08
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DrewkroDleman posted:Haha, this is so goddamn true with the older Germans. I was being serious.  I'll also call you out if you use your loving mobile as a tinny ghettoblaster on the public transport, I might even call you a rude oval office for it.
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Oct 2, 2011 11:41
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Stuhlmajor posted:Cellphone ghettoblasters, the scourge of modern society. To be honest I really haven't encountered it much lately, it was pretty bad a couple of years ago but with growing public awareness and a BVG-campaign it has stopped with the possible exception of alcohol laden subway rides in the middle of the night. I've never seen it in a bar but I guess it takes a rather special kind of rear end in a top hat to even consider it.
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Oct 2, 2011 12:40
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To be fair he's blowing it out of proportions. Only allowing women in the Bundeswehr as medics and doctors was an inequality but not really a big issue, only about 10 percent of the armed forces are women right now (about half of them as medics, so you are looking at about 10.000 out of 40 million that have joined in ten years). The problem with the Sicherheitsverwahrung was not that it was against human rights in general. The problem was that they tried to apply it to people that were proven to be a continuing danger to society but had already been sentenced so they couldn't keep them locked up even though it's very likely that they will kill/rape/whatever again. Right now the criminals that couldn't be kept in custody are followed by police pretty much all day long at great costs. Identification numbers during demonstrations and video taped interrogations would be nice I guess. The Verfassungsschutz is not the Stasi or the Gestapo, they investigate people that might be a danger to society due to ideological conflicts with the constitution. I think there is not a single country in the world that doesn't have a similar institution. DeusEx appears to me like a rather stereotypical left-wing brat (I'm sure he'd prefer the term Antideuscher) that enjoys all the freedom this country offers him while getting his panties in a bunch whenever he realizes that he's not living in an anarchist utopia. vvvv I completely agree hankor fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Oct 2, 2011 |
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Oct 2, 2011 19:48
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^^^That's actually a pretty good analogy, a bit nerdy but then again so is the guy in general. DerDestroyer posted:Speaking of which I think there used to be a lot of Vietnamese immigrants in Germany. I think the new head of the FDP is a Vietnamese person as well. I'd argue that the vietnamese experience is a bit different not due to better immigration efforts but due to numbers. There simply aren't enough Vietnamese to establish a true parallel society. While there are plenty of turkish doctors, travel agencies, lawyers and pretty much everything else you need to avoid contact with Germans you'd be hard pressed to find vietnamese equivalents. There are quite a lot of vietnamese supermarkets where often your only way of communicating is by gestures but the infrastructure for a truly segregated community isn't there. hankor fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Oct 4, 2011 |
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Oct 4, 2011 10:53
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^^^ You can hug me, be aware that I will file an extensive report about your hugging though.Baronjutter posted:I used to think germany was pretty cool, but it's probably only berlin. Germany is really sounding like the US of europe. It's the biggest economy but it's full of right wing religious folk with awful blame-the-victim racism and a "that's just extreme left propaganda!" to any social or economic development since the 70's. Religion is largely irrelevant in current German society. What we call the right wing would be a filthy communist in the US, racism is largely institutional and is actually more hidden classism than anything else . nuclear power will be abolished, the only discussion is when. hankor fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Oct 4, 2011 |
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Oct 4, 2011 18:37
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DerDestroyer posted:Who said German isn't a romantic language? Mark Twain did. http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html This essay is hilarious, partly because it's true and partly because he doesn't seem to get some of the finer points of the language. hankor fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Oct 4, 2011 |
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Oct 4, 2011 19:04
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Good thing that in politics we are more often than not talking about specific real life things ne? How much do you know about your Intelligence Agencies? How often have they cracked down on certain groups? You'd know better than me, of course. What the gently caress are you even trying to imply here? Here what the Verfassungsschutz has been up to for the las couple of years. http://www.verfassungsschutz.de/de/publikationen/verfassungsschutzbericht/
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Oct 5, 2011 09:07
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^^^ Of course the Verfassungsschutz doesn't give detailed repots to the public, that's the nature of the profession. The RAF-years were a rather difficult time that has brought some rather strong challenges to how robust the constitution actually is. With the involvement of the GDR and pretty much every other intelligence agency I doubt even the Verfassungsschutz knows who was really working for whom. Why the Linke is watched is outlined in the corresponding Verfassungsschutzberichten. They are not watched because they are deemed an "enemy of the constitutional order" they are watched because certain elements (namely the most left wing of the party) have the potential to be. I can see that this could seem like a slippery slope, but it really isn't. The Verfassungsschutz usually only uses public sources and anyone is free to appear before the Constitutional Court if he feels he is unjustly targeted. The category of people that are highly suspicious but aren't technically criminals is not exactly something that is easy to swallow but when you have people like this fuckhead or this piece of poo poo you can't do anything about them but watch them and try to prevent what they want to set in motion.
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Oct 5, 2011 11:48
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StrangeRobot posted:Whats really funny though is that the constitution is actually constantly and repeatedly being violated by conservative governments without those parties ever getting on the watchlist. All that happens is that they create new laws that retroactively absolve them of any crimes or simply the violation simply gets ignored and nobody cares. Right now as we're speaking here they are about to hand over German sovereignity to some obsure conglomerate in Bruxelles, will the fabled Verfassungsschutz protect us from that? Somehow I guess not. Care to elaborate on that point? I especially would love to hear your thoughts on how what you claim regarding the EU relates to Solange II.
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Oct 5, 2011 21:11
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StrangeRobot posted:Come on, the Verfassungsgericht constantly declares laws to be unconstitutional. I don't keep a list of that though so would it be enough to just mention the Hartz IV decision, or the Überhangmandate/electoral system stuff off the top of my head? My point is if those laws WERE unconstitutional how come the party that enacted them isn't on the watchlist while people who never violated the constitution are? Because those laws were not passed with the intent to actively undermine the constitution. The german law is based on abstract wording, so instead of just saying "car" we say "power-driven vehicle" it is done this way so you can't weasel yourself out too easily and so we don't have to change everything in case something new comes around. This however has the major drawback that it's also pretty open to interpretation, so what seems like a good draft on first sight could still be unconstitutional because of the way it can be interpreted. In that case the Bundesverfassungsgericht either overrules the decision that was made due to a certain interpretation, thereby clarifying how the law is to be interpreted, or it simply deems the whole law unconstitutional because it's not specific enough, discriminates someone or whatever. The latter case is pretty rare and doesn't mean that the underlying idea in itself is unconstitutional just this specific incarnation of the resulting law. StrangeRobot posted:Then there are the highly disputed cases where stuff that would 100% have been illegal before somehow magically passes even the Verfassungsgericht, like the 90ies attack on Serbia(although that was decided by SPD/Greens if I remember right), the weaseling out of drafting an actual Verfassung(with participation of the unified German people, like promised before) when reunification came, participation in the Afghan war(SPD again? maybe) and most recently the decision about parliament's sovereignity over the fiscal budgeting(I meant that with the handing over of sovereignity). You are completely right, the Bundesverfassungsgericht does change it's stance from time to time, it would be pretty bad if it didn't. Just imagine if they'd still hold the same values as they did in the 70's. With time the interpretation of the constitution and what it means evolves, mainly because the society itself changes and the BVerfG is not there to mandate morale values but to protect the people from the goverment (and to an extent from other people), so the BVerfG has to reflect what the people would deem to be constitutional if they'd actually cared. Naturally some areas of the constitution are off limits but it can be rather flexible at times which might not be to your liking in some cases but that's democracy for you. Have a look at how some americans think they can justify having heavy machine guns because it says "arms" in the constitution, it's like that but not quite as lenient. Please don't claim that the "Grundgesetz" is not an actual constitution because it's called the "Verfassung" or that the government weaseled out of drafting a new one, it makes you look stupid. Our constitution is widely agreed to be a drat good one, throwing all that away and rewriting it would've been completely pointless. Take a look at the Präambel and you'll see whose constitution it is (don't get irritated because god is mentioned). StrangeRobot posted:I don't understand the legalese of Solange II. clearly enough to comment on that. Would you care to translate that? Because right now I interpret it being pretty much a joke law/rule. They basically say: European community basic law is as good as ours so you file your complaints there as long as the EU doesnt't pass laws that would be deemed illegal by us. The joke is that while this may in theory protect us from bullshit minor EU laws, let's not kid ourselves and pretend that the Verfassungsgericht would stop anything with actual political momentum/weight behind it. Correct me if I'm wrong. What may seem like a joke ruling is actually very important. It basically means that the german constitution is not applicable to european law that is applicable in germany as long as the european courts have a standard that is similar enough to our constitution. This ruling is so important because it makes clear that we are ready to make some concessions in order to further the european idea but that our allegiance is to our constitution and that we will never sacrifice it's core values. StrangeRobot posted:Also let's not forget that Verfassungsgericht decisions can take years to be made. So while in theory you can always complain there, an illegal governmental decision can gently caress you over for literal years, and thats really not that comforting to know, because they DO pass unconstitutional poo poo first and then grudgingly abide by the courts decision years later, instead of doing it the other way round: Check all laws if they are compliant with the Grundgesetz. Let's have a nice analogy, let's say you decide to have a baby. You see it grow up and it brings you years of joy. Since you want the baby to grow up to become a successful doctor you give him a toy stethoscope on it's fifth birthday. Your baby goes to the gymnasium and on its graduation day you decide that since it's such a good baby you'll sponsor a trip to the states to meet your uncle whose a rather successful plastic surgeon. After the baby comes back it starts studying medicine. After a couple of years it becomes a plastic surgeon itself. You grow old and are pretty satisfied with how your baby turned out. On your death bed the baby confesses that it tried to hear the heart of some bugs with the stethoscope you gave to it, when it couldn't hear any it got angry and killed them. You find that story pretty cute, in the end it was nothing serious. Then the baby tells you that in eleventh grade he performed CPR on someone which he was able to do since you spurred his interest in medicine when you gave him the stethoscope. While coughing some blood you are smiling because you raised a good little baby. The nurse cleans your mouth from the blood and you notice the big knockers on the nurse and you give your baby a knowing nod since you'd recognize its work from a mile away. After you have peacefully passed away some policemen come crashing through the window screaming and waiving a warrant for your baby. Turns out your sweet little angel has developed a habit of raping his patients when they were unconscious ten years after it graduated university. It didn't always have that habit, but when it grew older and its patients grew younger something just snapped, it was still the same baby but the patients changed. And it's all your fault, you should have conducted a police investigation before loving the babies mom. Or was the baby itself good and you ruined it by giving him that drat stethoscope? Maybe the uncle? You don't know it but what turned you sweet little baby into the raping sociopath it is was that one time you went fishing and it saw all those helpless little fish in the bucket. In other words, you can't always foresee what you create, especially not when you modify it. tl;dr: Constitutions are actually a bit complex. hankor fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 5, 2011 |
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Oct 5, 2011 23:12
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az posted:Calling this wrong unless you provide evidence of some sort of planned reformation into the Linke. As far as the public is aware, the Linke is a collection of socialist politicians that hail mostly from the SPD, Greens and, to some degree, former SEDs. Are you serious? While I don't like polemic bashing of "die Linke" (there is enough factual stuff you can use) denying it's history is pretty bad. Have you honestly never heard of the PDS? The SED was rebranded into Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (SED-PDS) in 1989 the following year they rebranded it to Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), in 2005 they rebranded again to Die Linkspartei.PDS. Then in 2007 they joined together with the WASG to form die Linke. The year before they became die Linke the PDS had six times the members the WASG had. So no, neither in the public opinion nor factually is die Linke formed mostly by former member of the SPD and Greens, the overwhelming majority hails from a party that is directly related to the SED. Edit: I forgot you wanted evidence, how about the current draft for the party program of die Linke? http://www.die-linke.de/fileadmin/download/programmdebatte/100426_draft_programme_en.pdf  
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Oct 6, 2011 20:51
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dreamin' posted:The SED had 2,3 million members. Of these 2,3 million members 5% transferred over to the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS). You'd have a point if those 95% wouldn't have been pressured into joining the party, as it stands the people that remained in the party are more than likely to identify with the SED. dreamin' posted:The merger with the WASG happened in 2007 and merged 60000 PDS members with 11500 WASG members. At that time, 24% of the overall membership was from west Germany already (and therefore not SED). That's still a major part of the resulting party originating from the PDS. As for the 24% of PDS members from western germany, people move, usually to a place that offers better living conditions i.e. western Germany. It doesn't even matter if the members from west Germany are former SED or not, they still joined a party that has major ties to the SED which would imply that they share the ideas. dreamin' posted:Their ex-SED membership is rapidly dieing out, 68% of their membership in the eastern parts of Germany are 60 years and older. So the majority of the party is likely to originate from the SED, got that. dreamin' posted:They still have enough people with reprehensible ideas (like the loons that keep popping up that defend the wall and the border policies of the DDR). But they clearly are not in a position to do anything but cause minor scandals by giving dumb statements, even in their own party. So sending the Verfassungsschutz after them seems like a hilarious overreaction. The Verfassungsschutz isn't after them because some of them have rose-tinted glasses when they think about the GDR. They are watched because some of the members use the party to directly support extremist groups like the PKK and the KPF. I'm not saying that the Linke at large is trying to turn the country into GDR 2 but the SED leads directly into die Linke you can't deny that, it's not the same party but they have important roots there. This and the views, statements and actions of some of it's more powerful members attract some people that are a danger to society, they use the party's infrastructure to fund and organize themselves in a way that apparently warrants an investigation by the Verfassungsschutz. I actually don't even mind former SED-members in politics, I might not share their views but usually they have a real ideology they understand and demand things that are at least partly rooted in reality (see Gysi). They don't actively try to destroy this state but try to nudge it in a direction that they deem positive. hankor fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Oct 7, 2011 |
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Oct 6, 2011 22:33
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DeusEx posted:Jesus guys, could you please stop with the quoting wars. The multiple quotes in your posts, each followed by one sentence rebuttals, make it really annoying to read. Sure.
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Oct 7, 2011 07:55
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StrangeRobot posted:trolling Somehow the Verfassungsgericht sacks laws on a regular basis and bows to political pressure at the same time in your world. It couldn't possibly be that the judges actually know what they are doing and give detailed explanations for their reasoning. There is systemic political corruption? Germany ranks number 14 out of 180 countries when it comes to transparency. If you want to talk about lobbyism in Germany that's fine, it's an interesting and important topic but stop with your ridiculous hyperboles. http://www.transparency.org/publications/gcr/gcr_2009#6.4 Back up your ridiculous claims with some facts or get your polemic rear end out of here. Since you don't like analogies have a fable: There once was a little chicken, it hatched from an egg on a farm. Next to the farm was another farm, it produced corn on a field. The chicken's farm and the corn farm helped each other out, they traded eggs and corn with a wheelbarrow. When the chicken saw that it feared for it's potential siblings, of course it still ate the corn that was served in a tray During the night it always bellowed out it's worries that the farmer was killing it's siblings, it cried loud and unclear on the grass. One faithful day the chicken saw the wheelbarrow coming it's way, shocked of the fact it fell over dead on the ground. A week later a veterinarian came and had a look at the farmer's chickens to ensure that everything was compliant with national and EU-law and that the chickens were well cared for, in that moment the farmer rushed to his computer and made a stupid post on the internet. hankor fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 7, 2011 |
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Oct 7, 2011 21:42
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StrangeRobot posted:By the way, what do you think of the EnBW acquisition case having been decided now in B-W? (it's not the BVerfG, but still an interesting case of a violation of a state constitution, by CDU people, with no real consequences for them or their friends on the horizon, like we talked about earlier) The EnBW-acquisition stinks there is no doubt about that. But do they really get off without consequences? The recent ruling was about wether the acquisition was constitutional or not, the court says no. This doesn't have direct consequences for them, I give you that. This doesn't mean however that there won't be further cases against Mappus and Stächele concerning embezzlement (yeah I know that they currently refuse to do that) or for the compensation of damages. It's fairly recent so you have to give them time. Lobbyism isn't systemic political corruption, lobbyist do different things than just handing over bags full of money all day long. The job of a lobbyist is to represent interest groups, this means to bring the interests of a certain group to the attention of politicians. A friend of mine works for a lobbyist that is tied to weapons manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry (aka the two most evil entities known to man) and sure enough they do walk a thin line. Lobbyism in itself is not a bad thing, politicians need to be in contact with major players of the society and the economy, since this can lead to some rather shady business it has to be tightly watched. By the way Germany did sign the UNCAC it just hasn't been ratified yet. I don't specialize in corruption or the constitution for that matter but from what I can gather from journals and commentaries you'd have a pretty solid case if somebody would give money to a politician to vote a certain way. StrangeRobot posted:Apart from that. We have the erosion of workers' rights, wage stagnation and rampant unemployment while capital gains income is higher than ever, coincidence? We also do that "war" thing again. No, True, gently caress no, the capital income tax was raised in 2009, Maybe It's coincidence that things changed it could also be planned or because German politicians can't control the world I don't know , you seem to remember "Von deutschem Boden soll niemals wieder Krieg ausgehen.". Doesn't necessarily mean we won't join existing ones does it? hankor fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Oct 8, 2011 |
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Oct 8, 2011 00:10
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StrangeRobot posted:Well you see, neither is your average German voter. And that's why asshats like Einbauschrank try their best to smear any even slightly leftist movement with as much nonsensical poo poo as possible. You should hear their opinions on a ridiculous pretend-left bourgeois party like the Greens. They'll try to paint ANYONE who isn't a staunch CDU/FDP supporter as Stalin reincarnate. I find the current discussion rather interesting but I have to call you out when YOU dare to call somebody uninformed. You have proven several times that you make judgement calls on a whim without actually knowing what you are talking about. vvvv Because it is literally the only important discussion there is in german politics, it's either more towards capitalism or more towards socialism. It's a loaded issue since one will for the most part prevent the other. hankor fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Oct 10, 2011 |
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Oct 10, 2011 22:51
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The main conflict was about trying to apply the Sicherheitsverwahrung on criminals that had already been sentenced thereby prolonging their sentence due to a law that wasn't in effect when they had their trial.
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Oct 11, 2011 11:46
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ArchangeI posted:There were no supermarkets in the DDR. You had your Konsum, which sold a lot of things (if they had them, which they didn't), and otherwise you went to bakeries, butchers etc. to get whatever. Now, if you had evil imperialist money from your relatives in the BRD (or Lenin forbid, you actually were from there), you could shop in the Intershop, which sold luxury (i.e. western) goods. If you didn't you could buy them at exorbitant prices in special stores. To expand on that, the shortages resulted in quite a few product lines that substituted expensive goods so you had "Schlager Süßtafeln" that were pretty close to real chocolate when you consider that it had only 7% actual chocolate in it, another popular substitute was "Muckefuck" which was pretty disgusting instant coffee without any actual coffee in it. Besides the substitutes you had a huge black market and an expansive barter economy. My family was pretty lucky in that we had relatively wealthy relatives in the west so we bought a VW Golf and traded it for a plot of land in the suburbs of Berlin, when building a house we traded a fancy colour TV for custom made and laid parquet flooring. In general you had access to pretty much everything if you had the (west) money or connections.
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Oct 12, 2011 19:36
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DerDestroyer posted:Would you go back to those days if you could or are you happy with a unified Germany? The wall came down shortly after I started elementary school so I really don't remember much but seeing that my grandfather wasn't allowed to work (journalist) and my parents and siblings had extensive Stasi-files I don't have any nostalgic feelings for the GDR.
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Oct 12, 2011 21:41
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DerDestroyer posted:Things about Outsourcing The general problem you seem to have with outsourcing is that you seem to think it's a never-ending process, complete companies wander off and whenever a cheaper opportunity arises they migrate again. That's not true, usually the only thing that get's outsourced is menial labour. Sure it sucks for the person that's loosing his job but it would not only be stupid by the company it would be completely irresponsible towards the stakeholders (stake, not share). Minimizing costs always seems like a greedy thing but especially for smaller and medium sized companies it's the difference between make or break. Sure 100 people loose their jobs so 20 engineers and 30 secretaries can keep their job that sounds bad at first sight but the alternative would be that all 150 of them loose their job. Also you seem to ignore public opinion, for every trend there is a contra trend. For every gently caress head that only looks for the cheapest product (that usually doesn't give you a good margin to begin with) there is an informed consumer that looks for quality/sustainability/origin. If a company only chases after the cheapest labour people will notice and at least some of them will react to that. Take Siemens for example, they tried to outsource the assembly of their fancy high end protection devices (things that keep your generators and transformers from exploding) to China, turns out the quality took quite a hit (let's paint this circuit board in a thick coat of paint so we can market it as outdoor ready)) and competent troubleshooting (it's not working? gently caress if we know let's send it around the half globe) was nonexistent, currently they are in the process of finding easier things to do for their Chinese partners and reestablishing production lines in Germany. I agree that too often outsourcing is seen as a thing you do just because everybody else does it, but quite a few companies got a bloody nose especially in Asia, not only because the market hosed them but because they overestimated the level of skill and care found in your average Chinese migrant worker. The big boom is over, companies are coming to their senses and realize that cheap labour often comes with a price. hankor fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Oct 14, 2011 |
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Oct 14, 2011 02:30
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niethan posted:Why are nationalities and national borders and nations so important to you? Why aren't they important to you? No matter how enlightened you think your are, you are still the product of a national system and a society that emphasizes certain values while condemning other values. National identity no matter how arbitrary it is at certain times is an important thing. Sure it can lead to cringeworthy nationalism but it also leads to diversity.
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Oct 16, 2011 05:30
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elwood posted:You probably played too much Fallout. a. I'm pretty sure the idea is to gradually raise the importance of the test and aim for homogenized standards all over the country which is a good idea, gently caress the Bayernabitur. b. Sure it's 3 different subjects but it's only 90 minutes each and you can adjust the test to take into consideration the comparatively more stressful day. The ultimate goal is to see who will cut it in university and if they can't concentrate for 4 and a half hours that probably isn't the case. Having this system additionally to the current exams is stupid. But if you take away some time from the 3 hours you currently have to find the symbolism in one of Goebbels' speeches you'll end up with a German exam that doesn't focus on a single topic. c. Yeah it does, but if you have a handful of them with popper Klausuraufgaben it's an effective way to get some good insights into what the student knows and still seeing how he presents an argument. d. Not in a short timeframe but in the long haul it probably will. We already have started with standardized tests on a state level in the Haupt- and Realschulen. Sooner or later those will go nationwide and I'd be pretty surprised if the Gymnasien don't have at least a state-wide test by then. As it stands you have wildly different standards in the same school type throughout the country for no good reason whatsoever. What is that you have a 1,0 from a school in Brandenburg? That's nice but I'll search for someone that has better qualification, that feller from Bavaria looks promising, he's managed to get a 3,5.
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Oct 19, 2011 13:49
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^^^ba posted:Sozialabgaben und Steuern While the wages are lower, so are their taxes etc. and that doesn't even touch on the subject of systemic tax evasion and fraud. Orange Devil posted:This is so true. Also look at the bailouts. The German people don't want their money going to Greece and the Greek people don't want to have the money and guess what happens? None of the politicians give a poo poo about the people in the street. The people in the street also hate living near mosques and want the death penalty for child molesters, the people in the streets are the bloodthirsty mob that starts lynching witches whenever the harvest fails. Politicians have to act in the interest of the people that includes making unpopular decisions, just because the housewife across the street things that a bailout isn't justified doesn't make it true. Do you honestly think the people in the street have read the reports, bills or underlying contracts and can put forward an informed opinion about the macroeconomic scenarios that are involved if a major bank or another european state keels over? The politicians don't give a poo poo about the people in the street because those fuckers are hanging out in the street instead of informing themselves or shutting the hell up. hankor fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Oct 19, 2011 |
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Oct 19, 2011 20:08
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elwood posted:That's a bit simplistic don't you think? Of course it is, but so is blindly bowing to the general public just because they are misinformed.  
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Oct 20, 2011 01:03
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DeusEx posted:So perhaps we should abolish democracy and install a well meaning technocratic dictatorship? I mean the people don't know what's good for them anyway, except enlightened beings like you of course. I missed the point where I claimed to be the second coming of Saint Demokratius, all knowing political analyst and potent lover of myriads of economically challenged housewifes. I'm as much a misinformed asshead as you, Einbauschrank or any other member of the general public. My point is that whenever people bring up the Volksabstimmung or similar instruments I remember those nice little stickers I see on VW Beetles in favor of the death penalty, I remember the Bayernpartei and I remember the wonderful way the people screamed for blood in the beginning of the Kachelmannprozess. hankor fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Oct 20, 2011 |
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Oct 20, 2011 12:25
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xf86enodev posted:Spiegel and especially spiegel online are crap anyway. They're the populist bullshit for people who are too cool to read BILD. "See this? It's called a Döner, it's based on a vaguely Turkish dish and we put it inside Fladenbrot, truly the best of two worlds. What do you mean the Hot-Dog-Pizza is basically the same thing and that Italians are a much better example for successful integration?" You shouldn't be ashamed to say Döner, you should be ashamed if you actually eat it on a regular basis. While we are at it, is the name türkische Pizza also a shining example of the new multi-cultural identity that you assume for a reason I can't quite grasp?
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Nov 21, 2011 00:53
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xf86enodev posted:Wow, are you serious? First of all, türkische Pizza, is what people who can't be bothered call Lahmacun. So, this is more a shining example for many Germans inability to adapt to modern times. I'm not angry, I just think it's stupid to think that the acceptance of Döner has anything to do with multi-culturalism when especially in the last couple of years there is a strong tendency among part of the turkish community towards a parallel society (I'm not talking about crazy religious people). One of my local restaurants offers sushi with beelitzer Spargel when it's in season, by your logic this is because we have assimilated the japanese culture.
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Nov 21, 2011 17:32
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^^^ While he might try I doubt he has any real chance to become chancellor in the next 20 years, the general public I hope he is burned for the rest of his political career even if he somehow manages to turn public opinion, I'm sure it's going to get rather ugly if he ever speaks in the Bundestag again. That they dropped the charges is not that unusual and the 20000€ while not much is at least something. What actually bothers me is the claim of the prosecution that there is no public interest in charging him (yeah, who ever heard of that guy?) and that the people he plagiarized from haven't had an monetary loss (which is a bullshit reasoning on so many levels I can't even begin to describe it). Using him to make a statement for the importance of copyright law isn't something we should do, so apart from the public reasoning (which they couldn't have worded any other way) I can live with it. Note that there is no verdict and the message of them dropping the charges is "We are not 100% sure we can prove it or we don't care enough but it's not unlikely that you are guilty", having another disgusting media poo poo storm like we had in the Kachelman trial isn't really something that helps anybody. Additional charges like embezzlement are pretty unlikely to come to any fruition (they don't really apply) so don't hold your breath on that one. tl;dr: gently caress that guy, while he might be a disgrace to the academic and political world he wasn't stupid enough to actually get himself in serious legal trouble but hopefully he provided enough ammunition to be shot down should he ever pursue any meaningful position in german politics. hankor fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Nov 24, 2011 |
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Nov 24, 2011 19:43
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Hungry Gerbil posted:Perjury is a crime. Usually you have to vow that your thesis is your own work and usually Guttenberg would have committed not only a copyright violation but also perjury. But not at this university. You don't need to make an oath there. Nope. It doesn't apply here, you could make a very creative case of false declarations on oath which isn't a crime.
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Nov 24, 2011 20:44
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Hungry Gerbil posted:This is not the case in Bayreuth, but you pretty often have to sign an affidavit in most other universities. Why is this not the case in Bayreuth? Protection of their customers of course. I'm aware of that and it's a lovely practice to not demand it. Have a look at 154 StGB which is Perjury, it carries a minimum sentence of 1 year which makes it a crime. 156 StGB which could have applied but carries no minimum sentence is a misdemeanor. This is relevant because the former would go on his criminal record.
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Nov 24, 2011 21:04
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^^^ The sex-adds are hilarious Ententod posted:Certainly Guttenberg wasn't the first person to be caught with a plagiarized thesis? What kind of sentence do people usually recieve for something like that? Usually the charges are dropped and some money is paid to a charity , a plagiarized thesis (as well as pirating stuff in general) is seen as a "Kavaliersdelikt" in the eye of the general public so nobody sees the need to enforce it. A couple of years back nobody cared about corruption or tax evasion so that wasn't harshly enforced either. Ententod posted:Shrugging off the nation of Germany and loving off to America seems like a far more comprehensible course of action to me, is all. I'd rather take cases like this than deal with poo poo like if politicians have the right sexuality, religion or if they are unfaithful to their spouse or not.
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Nov 24, 2011 21:35
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Hungry Gerbil posted:but populism in all forms and the people who use it are still fundamentally anti-democratic. Take a step back and apply your statement to your posts about Guttenberg.
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Nov 27, 2011 18:06
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