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Hungry Gerbil posted:I don't see a connection. Maybe you could ecplain it to me. You attack him for being populistic, being incompetent and basically holding all the evils of the world in the black gate to the abyss he claims is his heart. Your only argument is that he plagiarized his thesis, which might say something about his morale values but doesn't really say all that much about his politics, as a matter of fact you haven't said anything of substantial value about his politics and yet you seem to think you are making a compelling case against him when in fact you are using populistic generalizations which is a bit odd seeing your stance on populism.
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Nov 27, 2011 20:51
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Hungry Gerbil posted:The confusing phrasing on the ballot card was in my opinion deliberate and a petty attempt to manipulate the outcome of this vote. Sure, that's why the result is pretty close to the survey that was held a week before the poll. "Do you want the current plan to be changed?" That's what the whole thing is about, answer yes if you want to change the plan, vote no if you don't. I'm pretty sure the brochure the people were sent explained that pretty clearly, so gently caress whoever was to stupid or lazy to vote for what he actually wanted. You can word the thing in about a million different ways that people should vote yes if they are against S21 without it becoming misleading. Do you want to stop S21? = not misleading Do you want to keep the old station? = not misleading Are you against the S21? = not misleading Here is this bill we have that will stop S21, yo cool wit dat, brother? = not misleading Do you not want change the plan? = loving misleading and exactly what you are proposing.
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Nov 29, 2011 00:44
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Stuhlmajor posted:Going with my gutfeeling, I feel similarly, but that's just a massive I think it's because they started to believe the hype they created. They are the good guys, die Bahn is a generally disliked company and then there was the whole issue with the police and that young group of protestors. For all intents and purposes they were the good guys fighting for nature, democracy and their history. People like that don't loose, they overcome the obstacle and gently caress the hot chick. Things like that tend to loose their factual basis rather quickly and turn into a personal struggle, when you get emotionally involved you don't really care about the goal anymore, you just want to be right.
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Dec 2, 2011 00:19
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if there ever was one.
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Orange Devil posted:These are all excellent suggestions though. Basic income in particular is easily the best thing a non-socialist government could do. The BGE is pretty much the worst thing you could do. Why on earth should we give money to people that don't need it? Why shouldn't we demand that the person that is supported by society is at least willing to give something back? Restricting upper wages is equally stupid, sure some people get way too much money but what about the ones that are actually worth it? If a company is able to be competitive while paying 8 digit wages to it's managers, good for them if it's sustainable. How can anybody justify that suddenly that nice 8 million paycheck is reduced to 250k, 1 Million, 4 million,on what factual basis? There is no overwhelming public reason that justifies it. People that earn millions aren't intrinsically bad or harmful for society so there is no factual reason to restrict their wages other than a general dislike for the upper class.
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Dec 3, 2011 21:37
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Orange Devil posted:And ensuring that a person can live doesn't entitle you to demand poo poo from that person, it's basic human decency. That's not what the BGE is about, that would be the Grundsicherung, BGE is about enabling people to participate in recreational activities. I don't think anyone in Germany honestly wants poor people to starve to death. The question on the floor is if it's a basic human right to be able to participate in society by being able to do things like going on vacation, to the zoo or to the theater and to what extent. Giving the poor money so they can barely survive is not enough I agree with that, but giving them enough so that they have the full range of options is not a necessity, it's a luxury. If you are poor you have limited options, that doesn't mean you can't participate at all it just means you'll have to prioritize. Orange Devil posted:If you combine a basic income with high upper marginal tax rates, it doesn't matter that you're also giving money to the rich, as you're getting it back anyway, and it conveniently combines all kinds of welfare programs into one comprehensive program. Combining the welfare programs is completely backwards to what welfare is about, by ignoring the needs you actually disadvantage people that actually need it. I don't see why somebody that is physically unable to work should get the same as someone that simply doesn't want to. Even the Piraten see the problem with the system when it comes to pensioners, the average pension is higher than any feasible BGE. Their proposal of adjusting the BGE to accommodate higher living costs with age are nothing more than a welfare system that is focussed on actual need which makes it not a BGE at all. You can make a case for people with disabilities, parents, pensioners and pretty much every other group that currently has a dedicated welfare program if you include this into the BGE you end up with the welfare system we currently have, while also giving money to people that don't need it. It's completely pointless if you do so and it's blatantly unfair if you don't. Sometimes it's a good idea to make things simpler but when it comes to issues that are as complex as welfare you might want to have specialized systems for the multitude of factors. Orange Devil posted:As for a factual reason to restrict wages, it is no coincidence that the most propserous times in the history of the UK and the US, for two examples, occured when their upper marginal tax rates exceeded 90%. Wealth inequality leads to all kinds of very serious problems, most notably the current global crisis of capitalism. If you are referring to the 1950-60s that was also the most prosperous time in German history and the upper marginal tax rate was 53%. Wealth inequality can lead to serious problems I don't dispute that but if you want to fight it a high capital-gains tax is a better way. ArchangeI posted:And if they aren't and still do it, effectively milking the company dry before it crashes and burns? Or if they stay competetitive by lowering wages of their workers and/or laying them off while maintaining (or even raising) the high wages of their top managers? In the first example they should be held accountable for that, the second one is a mood point that should be left to unions and the media to judge. Neither of those examples justifies generally limiting the income though. You seem to assume that limiting the maximum wage will directly translate into higher wages for the working class, if the management had any intentions of raising the wages they would do so. It's far more likely that the money that is saved will lead to expanding the company, maybe they buy one of 'em fancy new robots that only needs a single engineer to do the work of 50 workers. ArchangeI posted:At least for bank managers, I would support prohibitive taxes for boni to help fund the next round of bailouts brought about by their greed. I think even you would agree with me that many high ranking bankers have displayed gross misjudgment during the lead up to the crisis, motivated at least in part by their desire to score higher boni. That is fine, but I believe that if these same banks then appeal to the state to save them, there is a significant public reason to ensure that the state can deal with the next crisis brought about by this behaviour. I agree that some bankers were pretty negligent when riding the thin line between absurd profits and complete loss. Some didn't and I don't see why the ones that acted in a responsible way should be punished for it. As a matter of fact it was the rather risky approach that has been fueling the economy. Profits were high so the rates where low this translates to cheap money to invest in your little start-up, your construction company or your multinational conglomerate. Our credit rates have been low and our investment returns have been high, in one way or another we all benefitted from it, we have to take the good with the bad.
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Dec 4, 2011 01:54
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Schmidt is pretty much the most amazing person to ever go into politics even if I hate his wife with a passion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf7okjxpUJQ
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Dec 4, 2011 19:25
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DerDestroyer posted:Arguably the best news source for educated upstanding intellectuals is "Die Zeit". However just about every German news source with the exception of like Bild,FAZ or Süddeutsche Zeitung is still much better than what is available in North America. How are the FAZ and the SZ anything but good newspapers? You might not agree with the editorials but besides that I can't think of anything bad about them.
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Dec 5, 2011 23:01
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midnightclimax posted:Back in the 90s I had the impression that "Der Spiegel" was seen as some sort of bible for current affairs among germans. While it's probably not seen as the epitome of german journalism it's still pretty influential. They cover a wide range of topics in relatively good depth with pretty good exclusive sources. You'll hardly find a single waiting room that doesn't at least have a current Spiegel. Their online version receives mixed appreciation, while they are pretty fast and cover anything that could even be remotely interesting to someone, the writing itself is of a much poorer quality and some of the editorials will make you cry. As with any form of news outlet the comment section and forum are full of assholes.
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Dec 6, 2011 21:00
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^^^I think the people that have to rely on the "Münsteraner Stadtanzeiger" or the "Rostocker Rundschau" will find it rather lacking in the international news section.  midnightclimax posted:Konkret I've seen about 5 Konkret magazines in my life and have read two of them so I really can't comment on it. But it's existence shows what I like about german publications, they don't try to claim neutrality, usually they are upfront about their bias. While this can lead to an echo-chamber effect, every remotely sane world-view is represented in one or more major publications. I think the only paper that claims to be completely unbiased is the "Bild". I find it rather interesting that the lower class seems to be the only group that is targeted in that way, on the other hand they also use nationalist and fringe-fascist claims and promotions so it's better not to think about it. hankor fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Dec 7, 2011 |
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Dec 7, 2011 00:30
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That's what I get for making an offhand joke.
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Dec 7, 2011 20:56
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ArchangeI posted:Norddeutsche Neuste Nachrichten This is a thing of beauty.  E: Thinking about it, it would be perfect if it were "Neueste" so that is has 3 syllables in each word. hankor fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 16:14
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^^ It's actually a law that you can't open your shop during sundays since we are a god fearing country, our lord's day of rest is important to us. (we are not a really religious country so nobody actually believes that but nobody wants a 7-day working week either so that's what we stand by). Bakeries and the like (read: everyone that runs their shop a certain way or needs to stay open during weekends) can open on sundays but most have to remain closed, except on exceptional days of business like the weeks leading up to christmas/easter/winter/spring/summer/whatever ,it's called "verkaufsoffene Sonntag(e)". The number you can get away with depends on the state, if you live in a religious state you'll have less, if you live in an area that isn't Bavaria you are going to have more. Ultimately it's a practice that's going to go away.Condiv posted:Not to derail with ponychat, but I have read that Piraten insists on "Pony Time"(consisting of watching an episode of MLP) in the midst of sessions of the Berlin State Parliament. Is this at all true? If so, they're even more horrible than I realized. Sort of, apparently they didn't watch it during an actual session of the "Landtag" but in a "Fraktionssitzung" (internal party session). I have no problem with them watching MLP during the time they are supposed to do actual work, since they have yet to come forward with something that is based on german politics and doesn't result from an american-alternative media focussed point of view. What I find pretty disturbing is that they probably used equipment and locations that were payed for by the taxpayer to (probably) violate copyright law. As far as I'm aware MLP isn't made available in a legal german version on Youttube. http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/dlfmagazin/1630017/ <- german Before I get bum rushed by Piraten-supporters: While streaming of copyrighted content is sort of a gray area, it's highly probable that it's going to be ruled illegal on a regular basis. It doesn't even matter if they were in breach of copyright law or not, what matters is that we should hold our representatives to high standards, if we can push our president out of office for things that probably aren't illegal but immoral, we can say no to representatives that make a point of demonstrating their contempt for the basis of intellectual property (in regard to patent law, that's the thing we actually want to push forward since it's what runs our economy). Wall of hate for the Piraten ahead: Since some are going to be angry about the "american-alternative media focussed point of view"; have a look at their program. They focus on a couple of issues, those issues are not based on specific german politics, they are purely focused on the problems that are discussed on SA, 4Chan and Reddit (read: mainly american user base). They are against a "War on Drugs" that simply isn't happening in Germany (google Freimenge and be amazed with what doesn't get persecuted). They'd like more democracy, but if we look at switzerland as a much more direct democracy we find a whole different set of issues which the Piraten don't adress at all. They focus on "free internet", in the sense of literally free internet that can be used free of charge by everybody which is fiscally stupid (being fiscally stupid is a theme with this party). They'd like the internet to be free of government which seems like a good idea but they still have to acknowledge that the independent internet that is supposedly not available to us is what enabled one of their politicians to download child porn (low hanging fruits, I know, but they have yet to adress the issue with real workable solutions. Instead of coming forward with a system that can hinder undesirable niches, they just want to weaken control, without focussing it on things that are universally viewed as undesirable.). And they focus on freedom, I don't know what they mean with that since they don't bother to tell me but I guess that's good. I'd like to go into more detail but they simply don't offer real solutions that could be discussed. From the top of my head the only two real things they had to offer in the last state elections were: 1. Free public transport for everyone in a city that is broke with a transport system that barely can turn a profit as it is. 2. Free government controlled internet for everybody (seems to me like that would be against what they are about but sure whatever) and a massive funding boost for "Freifunk" (a non-commercial project where you open up your bandwidth for people that can use it; basically an open w-lan for the whole region). tl;dr: gently caress Piraten! hankor fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Mar 10, 2012 |
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Mar 9, 2012 03:03
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Duzzy Funlop posted:A brony party and the nazis got more votes than the FDP...you're kidding, right? Of cours they are kidding, that would be stupid. While the FDP clearly lost to the family party and the Crash Override party, they managed to beat the nazis with an astonishing 267 voters (out of 500.000). http://www.statistikextern.saarland.de/wahlen/wahlen/2012/internet_saar/LT_SL_12/landesergebnisse/
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Mar 26, 2012 18:13
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Orange Devil posted:How's the Eurozone doing again? Its doing fine, thanks for asking.
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Mar 27, 2012 20:29
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BabyFur Denny posted:In other news, Islamists have started stabbing police men who were protecting demonstrators. This isn't exactly helping their cause. This doesn't really hurt them, the salafists are pretty much the poster child for radical religious extremists in Germany. They don't aim for acceptance, they seek controversy so they can cry about being discriminated against when their demagogues are thrown out of the country or the Verfassungsschutz raids their offices.
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May 7, 2012 15:47
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I'd say so, the pro NRW guys get a perfect example of those whacky muslims doing stupid poo poo over Mohammed caricatures and the Salafists get to show that they are not afraid to get their hands dirty in the name of religion. It's win-win for them, it's just sad that some police officers that are just doing their job have to babysit those assholes and get hurt while protecting people that hate them.
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May 7, 2012 16:14
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^^^ If you really want to irritate Piraten ask them about the blatant sexism in their party and the success of right wing politicians. Has anyone else seen Christopher Lauer when he was on Stuckrad-Late Night? It was pretty amazing to see someone that is even more of a prick than BvSB. When asked about rather important issues he flat out admitted that neither he nor the rest of the party have given any thoughts about their stance. Being boring and pretty rude didn't help either. hankor fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 8, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 18:41
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Ententod posted:I just checked the show out on YT, had to turn it off cause I couldn't take Lauer anymore. Just because there's one German politician who looks sophisticated just by sitting around and smoking doesn't mean that dumbass should imitate him. You missed the best part, at the end they have a contest to see who's ADHS is more severe. Not only does Lauer fail as a politician, he also fails as the self-aware laid back nerd he tries to imitate. ArchangeI posted:The pirates could establish a new style of politics. I mean, their base message is the one every single party in parliament should have (control the Government, make sure it isn't doing poo poo its not supposed to) but which they usually don't take as seriously as they should. They could also pioneer new forms of allowing the public to participate in policymaking, which is probably one of the reasons for the Politikverdrossenheit - people have given up the idea that they can actually effect any change in Government or Parliament policies. Controling the government is the job of the opposition, the Bund der Steuerzahler and several hundred other lobbies, we don't need a party whose sole reason for existing is to bitch and moan without offering any alternatives (even the Linke gets things done on a small scale). Every single party is pretty good with pointing out flaws when it's not their turn so I don't see how the Piraten are any different in that regard. Involving the general public directly with party politics is also pretty backwards since the party itself wouldn't mean anything at all. That's actually what's hurting the Piraten right now, since they don't have a real profile they attract people from too many political streams and end up with no direction. How would direct influence of the people in policymaking work anyway? If we had Volksentscheide and Bürgerbegehren that actually mean anything on a federal level we wouldn't have the Euro and we would've killed ourself with austerity measures and an even bigger credit crunch during the crisis.
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May 8, 2012 21:38
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elbkaida posted:Well I'm sure you've heard the term 'liquid democracy' thrown around. Either delegate your vote to someone or vote yourself, with the ability to change the decision about who you delegate to at any time. While the concept sounds cool in theory it sound really dangerous when put to use. It's not really practical since you'd have to categorize each and every decision into a system that will either be too complex to bother with or too broad to actually mean anything. Sure if I want to have the NPD as my lead in questions of immigration and the Grünen when it comes to defense everything is fine and dandy until there is an issue that touches on both, defense and immigration. Just imagine our defense and immigration policies had an impact on our finances, the job market, education, infrastructure or foreign relations, it would be a clusterfuck and I'd either have to vote myself in everything or give most of my decisions to a party like I used to do. Besides the inherent problem of actually implementing and managing the system, what about coherence? If I don't have a government that can follow a plan and that can strong arm unpopular decisions when it needs to you end up with a directionless middle of the road approach. While this would work in good times, you run into severe problems in times of crisis, a large scale problem usually doesn't have a single solutions it has myriads of small things that work together. If you don't have a strong focused approach and a government by committee instead you'll end up with a lot of great ideas that don't work together and don't solve anything. A more direct form of democracy always sounds great on paper, but is it really needed? How many people watch the Bundestagssitzungen? How many read the drafts? The reason people aren't into politics is not because they can't participate, the problem is that the subject matter is complex and oftentimes boring which leads to a perceived lack of communication. Very smart people can tell me about the need for a more decentralized energy infrastructure all day long, I simply lack the expertise to come up with a solution on my own that goes beyond "Decentralize it more", even if I read the bill that details how that could be done I'm still not an engineer and have no idea what it actually means (being an engineer wouldn't really help much either since you'd still have to take into account the estimated costs, the effect on the environment etc.) The information is out there, it's just that nobody cares and chooses to complain instead.
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May 9, 2012 00:22
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ArchangeI posted:related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_kNeHWxF_U (the height of German comedy) I was totally expecting something else. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPIPzGBxYE (for quite some time the standard of German comedy)
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Mar 12, 2013 21:37
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