|
A Buttery Pastry posted:Arguably, the most important point is whether the Russian leadership believes anyone would defend the Baltics. Even if you, as a Baltic leader, have full faith in NATO nuclear powers starting a nuclear war over an invasion, the most important question is whether the Russian leadership believes it. If they don't, you're left with three options: I have serious doubts that France or the UK would ever use nuclear weapons in a conflict over the Baltics and I think Russia considers a purely conventional war with NATO possible, as long as NATO does not cross into Russian territory. That's why a credible conventional NATO deterrent is also important. If they have to stare down a stronger and entrenched NATO force at the Baltic border they will very likely gently caress off. They wouldn't have gone into Ukraine if it the AFU had been mobilized and deployed at the border.
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2023 20:09
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 03:03 |
|
|
Celexi posted:EU bureaucracy and Germans really hate it if anything is given away without beating up the recipient like they love doing to the southern countries. Germany has had a 6000€ BEV subsidy for 3 years now, long before the US. Heat pump installation subsidies are several thousand € since the beginning of this year and energetic efficiency modernization have been subsidized through tax reduction schemes for decades now. The problem with heat pump installation during the worst of the energy crisis was not a lack of financial incentive, but a lack of hardware on the market and not enough qualified companies/workforce to do the installations. Waiting lists are in the multi year range in some regions still.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2023 10:29
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:I've been reading this piece about Europe's tech industry woes and I've become increasingly concerned about Europe's endlessly grim seeming economic prospects, we don't really seem to lead on much these days and Europe's relative performance compared to America and China has been falling off sharply in the last couple of decades. If we can't make much headway in massive growth sectors like high technology, where does that leave us for the future? The Americans seem set to remain an economic colossus, but if Europe is falling off and becoming less and less relevant how can we maintain our quality of life? The times of huge growth are pretty much over for Europe as decarbonization and climate mitigation is ramping up and demographic collapse is taking hold. I'm not sure if it really makes sense to complain about "number not go up!" from a leftist perspective. The actually important metrics should not be GDP but HDI, life expectancy, social stability, education, etc. and how we are doing compared to other regions with similar nightmare demographics. A Buttery Pastry posted:Based on the numbers I could find, yeah: The number for Germany is "wohnungslose" (literally "apartmentless") and is just the number of people who would like an apartment of their own but don't have one. This includes everything from people who still live with their parents and would like to move out, to someone who moved to a different city for a job and are staying with friends or in a hotel while apartment hunting, to people literally sleeping on the street. The number of people who actually live on the street and sleep outside or in shelters is estimated to be around 40k.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
breadshaped posted:So in light of how popular the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is in the US and how fast it may accelerate them in renewable infrastructure, what the hell is the EU going to do now? I think the EU equivalent of the IRA is the pandemic recovery fund, which is also in the range of $1 trillion. Although IIRC a larger share of that are going to be EU backed loans, instead of direct transfers like with the IRA.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2023 09:05
|
|
|
Owling Howl posted:The problem is I don't think most of the regions that actually qualify for money from the recovery fund are anywhere close to full employment. The EU is much bigger than the Eurozone and very diverse in terms of economic development. Some regions in Spain and Italy still have a youth unemployment rate north of 20%. Inflation in Europe is much more driven by high fossil fuels prices than in the US so I'm really not surprised that monetary policy has less effect on it. Our own idiotic appeasement policy towards Russia post-2014 is what got us into this situation. But yeah, the US has a much more dynamic and productive economy than Europe and it's always been that way since the end of the war. I really don't want it any other way though, considering these productivity gains are bought with horrid labor practices and socio-economic inequality.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2023 11:36
|
|
|
Blut posted:What the modern left-wing parties generally don't do is actually address the fears of working class people of more strain on social housing/welfare, more competition for entry level jobs, more crowding in underfunded schools and hospitals, more competition for private housing, increased crime locally, fear of terrorism, fear of local cultural/social change etc. We had state elections recently in Germany with huge AFD gains and the polls show the same thing as always: the areas with the best AFD results are rural. These are the areas that don't have a significant number of immigrants and are not much affected by the housing crisis, crime, cultural changes or terrorism. The areas that actually do have these problems, i.e. urban centers, are where AFD got the worst results.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2023 22:45
|
|
|
Blut posted:The areas with the best AfD results might be rural, but "urban centers where AfD got the worst results" is pretty disingenous - AfD still did horrifyingly well everywhere overall, they're not just a rural party. Here is a map of AFD results in the recent Bavarian election https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/landtagswahl-bayern-wer-waehlte-wen-waehlerwanderung-hochburgen,TqZoIrF Everything in the top places are small towns in rural areas. Large cities all had results consistently below 10% and Munich, a highly diverse city with the most hosed up housing market in Germany, had literally the lowest AFD results in Bavaria with 5-6%. Günzburg, a tiny town of 20k people, had the highest AFD vote share at 24.4%. It's in a rural county with one of the highest average disposable incomes in Bavaria, far from being left behind. V. Illych L. posted:rural localities have as their big problem a reinforcing tendency of budgets to just go elsewhere, because the return on investment is higher elsewhere. that includes what we perceive as the provision of basic state welfare. this makes living in small towns or villages ever more expensive and jobs more sparse, which means that economics are pushing younger people into the larger cities. that means that these places, often with significant traditions and history, get depopulated and increasingly lose out, paying the same level of tax while not getting anywhere near the same level of services. the contemporary left has basically nothing to offer these people, because the logic of investment which leads to this inequality is fully accepted by what amounts to every left-wing party in europe with which i'm familiar; in a national system, greater investment in the national periphery is necessary for various geopolitical reasons. i think this is also why the alternative-right tendency trends euroskeptic. This is just not true for places like Bavaria, where post-war politics have been dominated almost completely by conservative and rural parties at the expense of urban centers. The rural areas are getting massive transfer funds from the economically productive cities and consistently report high standards of living. Their unemployment is also lower than in cities and close to full employment in many regions.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2023 01:31
|
|
|
Blut posted:Yes, but again, my point is that AfD have surged from under 1.9% ten years ago, and being regarded as extremists nutjobs, to now polling at 21% and being the second largest party in Germany - and still growing. Which is almost entirely down to the migration policies of the other major parties. I'm not denying the AFD poll numbers or that immigration is the most important issue for their voters. Your thesis that it's the fault of local crime increase or competition for jobs or housing just does not match the data. It's the opposite. Areas that do have these problems are the least likely to vote AFD and vice versa. Berlin shows exactly the same pattern with the "whitest" & safest parts of it voting AFD the most. The idea that people in the deepest AFD majority heartland in eastern Germany are afraid of immigrants moving there and compete with them for jobs or housing is just absurd. No immigrant will ever move there without someone holding a gun to their head and everyone understands that. These people's fears mainly revolve around vague conspiracy theories about the coming islamisation/arabization/degeneration of German culture, the Great Replacement or a political takeover by arabic immigrants. These fears cannot be addressed by building housing or increasing police presence because there is no housing shortage or significant crime where they live. And yes, the housing crisis, stagnating real wages or public infrastructure cut backs are extremely important issues that need to be addressed by the left. But the current German nativist tendencies need to be solved on a cultural level and through sensible social media regulation. The nativist population need to understand that the German economy and prosperity is only made possible by the labor of immigrants & their descendents. That we are experiencing an extreme labor shortage not seen since the post-WW2 recovery and that it will continue to get worse as the demographic collapse accelerates. We need more immigrants to keep our quality of life, not less.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2023 22:31
|
|
|
The anti-immigrant/socially conservative/pro-Putin/anti-vaxxer wing of the German Left party recently announced splitting off into a separate party under Sahra Wagenknecht(ironically the daughter of an Iranian immigrant). We'll see how they'll do during the election. They have had some very good initial poll results, but that's pretty much always the case in Germany with messianic figures. The closer we get to election day and the more concrete their positions have to become, the more they usually crash and burn like the Hindenburg.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2023 23:31
|
|
|
mobby_6kl posted:It's not necessarily bad but what is even the "leftist" position on immigration that's supposed to work out for everyone? There is a broad spectrum of opinions ranging from "abolish all borders" to positions that are basically indistinguishable from centrist ones. My impression of the current German majority left consensus(Greens + main Left party) is: - full solidarity with refugees fleeing war or persecution. No solidarity on humanitarian grounds with economic refugees. The economic problems have to be addressed in their home countries instead. All refugees are only temporarily part of society and need to return home once possible. Exceptions must be made on humanitarian grounds for people who live here long enough and are well integrated or have children here. We have more than enough resources to handle this, only allocation is the problem. If there are problems, they are political in nature(e.g. uneven geographic distribution of refugees or intentional starving of funds to discourage more people from coming here) - Anyone can come here for study or training, but publicly financed institutions need to prioritize the native population if there are resource shortages, even if the shortages are intentional - Modern medicine, economic development and the equal rights movement have annihilated our unsustainable pre-industrial demographics and while we try to fix this poo poo and come up with something better, we gonna need people from other countries to come in and help us out in the meantime. They should have the same rights, compensation and opportunities as the native population and a right to permanently become equal citizens, if they want to. The systems intended to help these people integrate are hilariously insufficient and need to be massively improved. Only people with in demand skills and their families can come. This is only temporary for 2-3 generation until we have reached demographic sustainably. - EU citizens must have the same rights and opportunities as natives. As the new EU members converge economically with the rest, all "tensions" about immigrants from there will disappear. (I'm not necessarily endorsing any of these opinions, just trying to assemble a coherent position from everything I see & hear)
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2023 13:12
|
|
|
It's fair criticism. Nativism and working class advocacy are pretty contradictory in most of central Europe nowadays. Such a person has either never been to a factory floor, a cleaning company or nursing home in the last 40 years or they don't really give a poo poo about the interests of the working class beyond platitudes.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2023 16:44
|
|
|
So, the German left party recently split off an anti-immigrant "left, but with right-wing characteristics" party under Sahra Wagenknecht(as a poster itt wanted to see). They now have presented some initial basic political positions https://www.dw.com/en/germany-sahra-wagenknecht-presents-left-wing-conservative-party/a-67923808 Some highlights: - end of most decarbonization efforts, instead climate change must be solved through new technologies(only example they mention are new types of e-fuels for combustion engines that are "climate compatible") - higher pensions & unemployment benefits - end of sanctions against Russia and trying to convince them to restart gas exports to Germany - immediate end of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, pressure to negotiate and accept Russia's "legitimate interests" in the country and eastern europe - end of "cancel culture", specifically people shouldn't be "defamed" just for saying what they think about the pandemic(she's an anti-vaxxer) or support for Ukraine - political purges in public broadcasters and instead hiring people with more "diverse opinions" Interestingly there is absolutely zero mention of anything related to immigration, despite this being their main dispute with the Left party. They are very, very careful on that one. Overall, it seems like a huge pile of garbage. Nothing about their social policies is significantly different from the main Left party and all the right-wing crap is damaging to the working class in the mid and long term. What a great benefit for our political landscape.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2024 13:32
|
|
|
Germany was occupied and without sovereignty until the 90s and the occupation only ended after Kohl committed to the founding of the EU and a common currency. Nobody was gonna let Germany off the leash that easily again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, still shame on you. But, well, you can't get fooled a third time.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2024 20:02
|
|
|
This conspiracy narrative that Germany had some kind of secret plan to dominate Europe after reunification is absolutely bizarre and doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. - The Euro wasn't a German master plan. It was forced on Kohl against his will, who then pushed it through domestically against the will of the German population. - After the Greek debt crisis Germany(together with France) was always one of the members consistently pushing for closer political & fiscal EU integration and a common budget. - Germany was economically in the shitter throughout the 90s and early 00s and often referred to as the new sick man of Europe. Its economic rise only began in the mid 00s, roughly a decade after the founding of the EU. - The fiscal responsibility faction inside the EU is huge and represents likely the majority of the EU population and of which Germany is just one member state. A single nation with only 1/6 of the whole population couldn't force poo poo on everyone else, especially not in the unanimity and consensus focused EU.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2024 02:19
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:I think that interpreting Austerity as an unilateral German invention is wrong. It is an international movement that caught on more in the EU then in other places. And it caught on more in Germany then in the rest of the EU. It's probably just arguing about semantics, but Germany is not "pro-austerity". The post war government and societal consensus has always been just bog-standard Keynesian economics and the government never had a problem turning on the public debt hose during any of the last few economic crises. I don't know if there are still any genuinely pro-austerity governments left in the world. I think that whole idea died out after WW2. AFAIK the Keynesian approach is still the consensus among economists and governments around the world and ideas like MMT are pretty fringe outside of some online communities and certain parts of academia.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2024 13:06
|
|
|
Rappaport posted:Why does this line of thinking persist? The article that began this outlines Germany's obsession with austerity. What about this is a sign of "pro-austerity" for you, instead of just Keynesian economics though? Both the federal and EU debt limit differentiate between structural and cyclical deficits and are more relaxed about the later ones. Even the absolute limits on debt are suspendible during national crises or a serious recession. I certainly can't remember any evidence of that mentality in government during my lifetime here. As soon as there is an economic downturn, the wallet comes out. The country just went through a massive and unprecedented public spending spree during the pandemic, initiated by a conservative government. It is still running a massive deficit. And you do have to put that current deficit into perspective. Germany is currently not in a serious recession. The labor market is as tight as it has ever been after the WW2 recovery and expected to only get tighter. Inflation is very high, but so are interests. It's not exactly the conditions where Keynesianism screams to hit the GO! button on the money printer. Just so there is no misunderstanding: I think the federal debt brake is a very bad idea and I want it gone as soon as possible. Traditional Keynesianism has no way to account for the value of long term investments in decarbonization/sustainability. Nor does it have any idea what to do with a society in total demographic collapse and labor shortages. Nor does it account for situations where there has been a lack of important and valuable public investments because the public budget is now 50% pension expenditures and there hasn't been an economic down turn that would justify financing these investments through debt. The whole situation is very, very stupid and I suspect it will get much more stupid as the pivot to sustainability and lack of population growth will wreak havoc on our current understanding of boom-bust cycles. GABA ghoul fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jan 21, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2024 15:08
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:I'm sorry but these extortion tactics makes the EU look like a mafia syndicate. Hungary has been in gross violation of EU law for years now in various areas and can be sanctioned almost at will due to this. Goodwill from the rest of the EU is what keeps the money flowing and goodwill is not an infinite resource. Also, what gets everyone so much riled up about this is his obsession with this particular issue, i.e. blocking support for Ukraine. He has no obvious reason to push this hard back here. So the suspicion is that he either has an implicit understanding with Putin that once Russia dismantles Ukraine, Hungary will receive some of the territory or that he even explicitly made some deal with the Kreml on this.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2024 14:33
|
|
|
It's completely worthless for ranking safety though. Crime perception and crime are not necessarily correlated(or have become anti-correlated in many places due to sensationalist media reporting). It's still useful for understanding public anxieties about safety though. IIRC Spain has one of the lowest murder rates on the planet, which is usually correlated with low violent crime. I doubt it would show up in the last few places in a real safety ranking.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2024 12:40
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:Is German at risk of losing its status as a language? Calling it a language was always a little bit of a stretch. It's mostly a Dutch dialect
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2024 11:38
|
|
|
English is a weird mess of a language, but it's way too late to change to something else now, so I'm fine with it staying the lingua franca. We just need to decouple it from its British and American association. Do some minor language reforms and call it 'European English' and then teach that in schools, instead of British English. In a generation or two, rename it to something other than English. Like 'Europenese' or 'Brusslish'. If we have madmaxed by then we could also go with something really weird like 'the ancient island tongue' or 'the common brit jabber'.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2024 17:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 03:03 |
|
|
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. But it needs to have a lot more strange idiosyncrasies that annoy Brits and Americans. Annoying them is something we Europeans could bond over and form a common identity around. Like, a cell phone could be called a 'handy' in Europe and when you want to express that something is unacceptable that would be a 'total no-go'. Something ridiculous like that. And it needs to be standardized and prescriptive and taught in schools.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2024 21:14
|
|
?