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On September 05 2017 02:39 sc-darkness wrote:
And that's why you've got Brexit. Some EU idiot decided that all refugee laws should apply to all countries. Well, countries are sovereign so there's a need for a breathing space. Before anyone makes the mistake to say "the UK didn't leave because of refugees" - yes, I don't mean exactly that. I mean this notion of enforcing rules on all EU states even if it's for a not very important issue. There's just not enough freedom sometimes.
To give an example of EU's ridiculousness sometimes: cucumber has to be straight. shape of bananas, etc. Also, foreign policy about borders. That law about selling land to foreigners, etc, etc. Not everyone is Merkel, there are different opinions. The EU is pretty bad at accepting different opinions sometimes.
Also, I'm for the EU. I just hate it when the EU oversteps its boundaries. This is when I'd not blindly support it.
How about you don't talk about issues you have no understanding of? How can you claim brexit occured due to refugee laws (whatever they may be.) UK isn't part of the Schengen Zone. It does not and never had open borders between the EU. As for laws regarding refugees, that has nothing to do with the EU, but rather the UN and the political climate after WW2.
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On September 05 2017 03:03 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2017 02:39 sc-darkness wrote:
And that's why you've got Brexit. Some EU idiot decided that all refugee laws should apply to all countries. Well, countries are sovereign so there's a need for a breathing space. Before anyone makes the mistake to say "the UK didn't leave because of refugees" - yes, I don't mean exactly that. I mean this notion of enforcing rules on all EU states even if it's for a not very important issue. There's just not enough freedom sometimes.
To give an example of EU's ridiculousness sometimes: cucumber has to be straight. shape of bananas, etc. Also, foreign policy about borders. That law about selling land to foreigners, etc, etc. Not everyone is Merkel, there are different opinions. The EU is pretty bad at accepting different opinions sometimes.
Also, I'm for the EU. I just hate it when the EU oversteps its boundaries. This is when I'd not blindly support it. How about you don't talk about issues you have no understanding of? How can you claim brexit occured due to refugee laws (whatever they may be.) UK isn't part of the Schengen Zone. It does not and never had open borders between the EU. As for laws regarding refugees, that has nothing to do with the EU, but rather the UN and the political climate after WW2.
Learn to read please. Re-read post if you have to.
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Wanted to ask why nobody here is talking about the debate between Merkel and Schulz but after checking the summaries I think there is simply nothing controversial to talk about. Boring Germans 
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Well, both are part of status quo. You wouldn't really expect something drastic. Especially Merkel, she's been around for more than a decade.
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Yea there's honestly just not much to comment on.
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On September 05 2017 03:49 Sent. wrote:Wanted to ask why nobody here is talking about the debate between Merkel and Schulz but after checking the summaries I think there is simply nothing controversial to talk about. Boring Germans
Because Schulz and/or his campaign team decided to completely throw all his potential away.
Merkel is doing her usual zZzZz style and somehow really the SPD thought, the topic to win this election vs Merkel would be to "free kindergartens for everyone". (while kindergartens are having not even close to enough employees, because nobody wants to do that job...)
Instead of trying to actually present a new societal vision, just to show that Merkel has nothing more to fight for than "manage status quo", they went into those marginal topics. They claimed their campaign is all about "social equality". But do they really believe, they gain "social equality" by those small money transfers? They should have made this an election about values. They should have presented a solution, how they want to tackle the future. What kind of Germany they want.
Why not use Schulz' (in Germany very positive) pro-Europa-image? Campaign on a bigger European vision. Say, that Schulz would have fought all his life for this vision of Europe he has. Instead they put him there like a clueless schoolboy who has never talked to anyone, while Merkel rattles of her diplomatic contacts....
I admit that I'm extremely disappointed by the campaign and program of the SPD. This was, what I would have expected if they had someone like (pre foreign minister) Gabriel or one of the other completely flat characters they have up there. But when they decided to bring Schulz, I really hoped, they would use this as a chance. A chance to go deep, because with Schulz they could actually sell this to the people. Currently there is no party who is presenting a real European idea. And instead they joined Merkels sleeper and than tried to fake some difference with bullshit like free kindergartens.
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On September 05 2017 02:39 sc-darkness wrote:
And that's why you've got Brexit. Some EU idiot decided that all refugee laws should apply to all countries. Well, countries are sovereign so there's a need for a breathing space. Before anyone makes the mistake to say "the UK didn't leave because of refugees" - yes, I don't mean exactly that. I mean this notion of enforcing rules on all EU states even if it's for a not very important issue. There's just not enough freedom sometimes.
To give an example of EU's ridiculousness sometimes: cucumber has to be straight. shape of bananas, etc. Also, foreign policy about borders. That law about selling land to foreigners, etc, etc. Not everyone is Merkel, there are different opinions. The EU is pretty bad at accepting different opinions sometimes.
Also, I'm for the EU. I just hate it when the EU oversteps its boundaries. This is when I'd not blindly support it.
I'm just sad that we have a nation wanting to move towards stronger sovereign nations instead of blocks that promotes free trades, ideas and works against wars amongst its members. The build-up to the EU was for a repeat of WW2 to not happen, it has worked pretty well for that and regression is sad. Hopefully it is a temporary setback and the UK or parts of it rejoins in 20 years or so.
As for the opinion on overstepping bonds by making regulations and rules for the union. Is it better to do those 20+ times on a lower level instead? You get just as ridiculous stuff there now and then but multiply the waste by 20.
I agree some reform is needed. It shouldn't be the elected people sitting on many of those meetings, they sound like standard bureaucratic stuff that they can read up on and then vote on after a specialist work group handles it and suggests a law, regulation or whatever it should be called.
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Yeah, I agree that there's just nothing worthy of discussion there.
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Merkel is just too slick for Schulz and as they are part of every major decision due to being junior partner it's apparently hard to find actual stuff from the past to attack her with. He went back to a statement of hers from 2013 about the toll for german motorways as more or less his only direct attack.
They agreed and thanked each other so much, people where asking whether it was a duell or a duet and that they should kiss already.
Anyway, regarding the EU forcing open borders. Merkel unilaterally said Germany would accept refugees fleeing the Syrian war while facing an imminent crisis, right? How is that forcing open borders on everyone?
As to straight cucumbers I have 2 questions for you, just for some perspective on the issue:
1) have you ever bought curvy cucumbers or cucumbers that arn't close to perfect?
2) have you ever tried fitting cucumbers of various sizes and shapes in to a standardized container for transport?
e: and a statement of the EC regarding your question Cucumbers do not have to be straight. There are grading rules, which were called for by representatives from the industry to enable buyers in one country to know what quality and quantity they would get when purchasing a box, unseen, from another country. Nothing is banned under these rules: they simply help to inform traders of particular specifications. The EU Single Market rules are identical to pre-existing standards set down both by the UN/OECD and the UK.
Regarding the bananas I suggest you check your facts and read the respective regulation 2257/94 before you argue.
A quick summary by the BBC:
As Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 puts it, bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature". In the case of "Extra class" bananas, there is no wiggle room, but Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape", and Class 2 bananas can have full-on "defects of shape
For all your banana EU classification needs you will get your fix here.
I do not want to say that everything regulated by the EU is good per se, but for some special talking points of anti-EU folks there might be more to it than meets the eye.
Also, who the fuck needs 1,600W+ vacuum cleaners. Like the 900W model isn't gonna vacuum better than before. Like a "2,000W" supermarket stereo is actually even close to my 30W amplifyer in sound and volume.
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On September 05 2017 02:39 sc-darkness wrote:
And that's why you've got Brexit. Some EU idiot decided that all refugee laws should apply to all countries. Well, countries are sovereign so there's a need for a breathing space. Before anyone makes the mistake to say "the UK didn't leave because of refugees" - yes, I don't mean exactly that. I mean this notion of enforcing rules on all EU states even if it's for a not very important issue. There's just not enough freedom sometimes.
To give an example of EU's ridiculousness sometimes: cucumber has to be straight. shape of bananas, etc. Also, foreign policy about borders. That law about selling land to foreigners, etc, etc. Not everyone is Merkel, there are different opinions. The EU is pretty bad at accepting different opinions sometimes.
Also, I'm for the EU. I just hate it when the EU oversteps its boundaries. This is when I'd not blindly support it.
If *one* country decides it's own refugee or asylum laws then that's an issue all nations that belong to the EU have to deal with, due to free movement. That's why there needs to be a common solution. Analogue for outside borders, if Italy has different asylum laws than Greece or France then we're screwed again.
Everything but an EU-wide solution is simply not practical.
On September 05 2017 04:25 mahrgell wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2017 03:49 Sent. wrote:Wanted to ask why nobody here is talking about the debate between Merkel and Schulz but after checking the summaries I think there is simply nothing controversial to talk about. Boring Germans Because Schulz and/or his campaign team decided to completely throw all his potential away. Merkel is doing her usual zZzZz style and somehow really the SPD thought, the topic to win this election vs Merkel would be to "free kindergartens for everyone". (while kindergartens are having not even close to enough employees, because nobody wants to do that job...) Instead of trying to actually present a new societal vision, just to show that Merkel has nothing more to fight for than "manage status quo", they went into those marginal topics. They claimed their campaign is all about "social equality". But do they really believe, they gain "social equality" by those small money transfers? They should have made this an election about values. They should have presented a solution, how they want to tackle the future. What kind of Germany they want. Why not use Schulz' (in Germany very positive) pro-Europa-image? Campaign on a bigger European vision. Say, that Schulz would have fought all his life for this vision of Europe he has. Instead they put him there like a clueless schoolboy who has never talked to anyone, while Merkel rattles of her diplomatic contacts.... I admit that I'm extremely disappointed by the campaign and program of the SPD. This was, what I would have expected if they had someone like (pre foreign minister) Gabriel or one of the other completely flat characters they have up there. But when they decided to bring Schulz, I really hoped, they would use this as a chance. A chance to go deep, because with Schulz they could actually sell this to the people. Currently there is no party who is presenting a real European idea. And instead they joined Merkels sleeper and than tried to fake some difference with bullshit like free kindergartens.
That's what happens when a central-left "social-democratic party" has a neoliberal wing that's quite strong within the party. I was genuinely hopeful that Schulz can bring something different to the table but that's not exactly what ended up happening.
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I doubt that's the problem. Most social democrat parties in Europe have an economically more liberal wing nowadays yet nowhere is politics so boring as Germany at the moment.
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On September 05 2017 05:04 RvB wrote:
I doubt that's the problem. Most social democrat parties in Europe have an economically more liberal wing nowadays yet nowhere is politics so boring as Germany at the moment.
The way I see it the German issue is that our social-democrats were responsible for some of the most controversial reforms in decades because that wing was completely in power a decade ago. Ever since that time they didn't recover, people don't really believe the "social" part of their name anymore - yet they're still campaigning on it. The grand coalition also hurts them because they were partially responsible for everything "bad" they could pin at conservatives otherwise.
Schulz was the first time since a long time that I got the feeling that maybe they can turn can turn the ship around but within half a year or so that hope pretty much evaporated.
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I only watched very brief parts of the debate an during one of them, Schulz was trying to explain something rather technical, possibly about pensions or sth., and it simply didn't work, not in the one minute he has.
After that the attention span is over, moreover people don't want to hear technicalities they don't understand or cant evaluate without fact checking.
These displays are not about explaining the intricacies of your pension concept but to display that you have one that is better than the possibly non-existent counterpart. When questioned (maybe he was), you go into details but no too much that it gets over the head of the average Joe and refer to the actual concept paper that your party published/will publish in the aftermath of the (last) debate before the election.
It's about drawing a vision and point in the direction you want the country to go, like evo and marghrell pointed out.
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The debate was a rightwing conservative propaganda event par excellence. Commentated by a bunch of journalists which are all know to make their money from endlessly talking about refugees, crime and islam in their articles and talk shows.
Moderators: "Hey, let's talk 45minutes about refugees. Mrs Chancellor, please explain your politics. Don't you believe it was too left-wing?"
Merkel: "Defending her politics."
Moderators: "OK, thank you Mrs Chancellor. Now Mr Schulz, you are even more left-wing. Let's quote you out of context and then please defend how someone can be so naive on this issue!"
Schulz: "Talks about integration and a European perspective on the issue."
Moderators: "Seems like you are both left-wingers on this issue, although we implicitely told you a hundred times that refugees should just be gone, yet you refuse to ackwnoledge that. So now that we have used half of the show to talk about refugees which is obviously the only important topic, let us talk about terror and security caused by refugees. Then let us talk about foreign right-wing populists like Trump and Erdogan which we know both of you are on the same side."
"Now two minutes social justice and four minutes about Dieselgate. Keep it short and stop answering each other! We really cannot allow Merkel to actually have to debate with someone, everyone knows she's really bad at arguing. Damn, time's up, so we are just going to summarize economics completely objectively: Everything has been perfect the past years with Merkel as chancellor and everyone profits, in particular the poorest who used to be unemployed but have been generously granted work by the power of low wages (don't mention that they are all voting for the far-left because they are unhappy about the situation)."
Comments afterwards: "Seems like there are hardly any differences on ALL topics, which we ALL covered equally! HINT: No need for change!!!"
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On September 05 2017 03:25 sc-darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2017 03:03 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On September 05 2017 02:39 sc-darkness wrote:
And that's why you've got Brexit. Some EU idiot decided that all refugee laws should apply to all countries. Well, countries are sovereign so there's a need for a breathing space. Before anyone makes the mistake to say "the UK didn't leave because of refugees" - yes, I don't mean exactly that. I mean this notion of enforcing rules on all EU states even if it's for a not very important issue. There's just not enough freedom sometimes.
To give an example of EU's ridiculousness sometimes: cucumber has to be straight. shape of bananas, etc. Also, foreign policy about borders. That law about selling land to foreigners, etc, etc. Not everyone is Merkel, there are different opinions. The EU is pretty bad at accepting different opinions sometimes.
Also, I'm for the EU. I just hate it when the EU oversteps its boundaries. This is when I'd not blindly support it. How about you don't talk about issues you have no understanding of? How can you claim brexit occured due to refugee laws (whatever they may be.) UK isn't part of the Schengen Zone. It does not and never had open borders between the EU. As for laws regarding refugees, that has nothing to do with the EU, but rather the UN and the political climate after WW2. Learn to read please. Re-read post if you have to.
So...basically you have no idea what you are talking about, acting out worse than a low quality tabloid, but you won't engage on the issues. Good to know.
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German politics seems so boring. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
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On September 05 2017 07:47 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
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German politics seems so boring. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Well, I think in this special case it is both.
Merkel is the icon of "managing status quo". She is campaigning on exactly that. And many consider her to be a proven very good choice for that.
THIS is certainly really good.
This obviously leads to an extremely boring campaign from her side. But well... this is basically part of her promise. Her promise is that things are staying the way as they are, and she will steer the ship through those troublesome times, as she has done for years. Her track record is argument for her enough basically. You can hardly blame her for this kind of campaigning.
The bad thing comes with the SPD. Who, instead of proposing a counter position, a vision for how they want to change Germany and Europe, simply also campaign for Status Quo with some marginal differences in details. What kind of strategy is this? Yes, campaigning for change holds a risk, that the majority prefers the Status Quo. But those who do so, have absolutely no reason to vote for the SPD but can stay with the well proven Merkel.
And those who are unhappy or uncertain right now are basically ignored and forced to the AfD or the Linke. I have absolutely no idea what voters the SPD tried to gain with this strategy. I have a hard time imagining a voter who didn't vote SPD last election, but this program convinced him to come back.
And the irony is the choice of Schulz as candidate. He has absolutely nothing to show for this campaign they do. Painting him as a fighter for Europe would have suited him so much better. Talking about how he spend his entire life to fight for a unified Europe. But no, he has to campaign on free kindergartens, and nobody has a clue what he has to do with that topic ^.^
But even if you don't wish the SPD well, and I'm not even sure I personally do at this point, I think this is really harming the political discourse in this country. Elections should be about choices! But our second largest party simply refused to provide one.
This isn't a choice between Bratwurst or ice cream, it isn't even the choice between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. This is the choice between vanilla ice with dark chocolate sprinkles and vanilla ice with milk chocolate sprinkles. Cool!
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The lack of vigorous political debate in Germany at the moment is strange to me.
But what's even stranger to me is the focus (or lack thereof) of the debate that is had.
It seems to me that Germany is doing quite well right now but is facing an existential crisis in the medium term. Germany is about to suffer a complete demographic collapse, to the point where i doubt even middle aged Germans will have anyone to pay for their pensions, or worse keep society running, when they retire. It's obviously going to be even worse for those who are younger.
Immigration is obviously helping, but (a) most immigration is coming from other EU countries who are about to suffer the same fate as Germany only on a slightly longer timescale, and (b) Germany (like sweden and most other eurpoean countries) is painfully slow and bad and at integrating noneuropean immigrants. Finally (c) large scale immigration is already changing the face of society so quickly that even many of those who are ok with immigrants in the abstract are feeling slightly uncomfortable at hte sped of the changes and that makes the idea of increasing the rate of immigration even more a political non-starter. Even though, just to preserve current demographics (where 50% of the electorate is 50 years+ !!!!) Germany would need to increase net immigration to 1m a year....
Therefore it seems to me that the single most important question facing Germany if they want to remain a successful country where citizens can retire happily and well is how to massively increase birthrates. The second most important question is how to integrate noneuropean immigrants faster.
At this point we havent even talked about the question of the future of the European union, and to what extent the german electorate want the german nation to remain a nation-state, or be tied up in a larger framework. This is most certainly a question that will come to a head within the lifetime of those of us on this board.
The strange thing to me is that Germany is doing well right now so they have the time to think seriously about longer term questions and try to come up with solutions, but instead they dont seem to talk politics at all, as if nothing is going to change and time is frozen. It's so weird.
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SPD rebuilt the pension system to the point that elderly are competing with homeless to collect cans in public parks nowadays. Taxes on an export focused economy are used to get rid of debt for that very reason and even the conservatives around Merkel are tolerant enough towards immigration that it makes a difference.
It is a huge topic that feels like it is underdiscussed in Germany, but broadly agreed upon throughout political parties and actively tackled where it doesn't interfere with the economic agenda.
If you want to raise birthrates (which I don't believe you should want in an inheritance society as you are just splitting wealth even further at the bottom) you'd have to make it possible for young people to build up security (=property) much faster, but with prices these days that's not going to happen and there is just no party actively seeking a solution to fight the root of it, which is the extreme inequality.
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I don't think "raising birth rate" is a long-term solution to anything. The earth might already be overpopulated, and it definitively can't deal with a constantly increasing population forever.
But in our current retirement system, each generation pays for the retirement of the previous one. Which is fine as long as you have increasing population, but becomes harder when you have increasing retirement time and decreasing amounts of people paying for it.
I'd say we need a fix for that structural problem. Something along the lines of having each generation pay for their own retirement is a lot more stable in this regard. The problem with that is that a) you need to squirrel a lot of wealth away, which might not be ideal for the economy, and b) one generation has to bite the bullet and pay for both their parents retirement and their own. (I have a suspicion that that is going to be my generation), which is not something that you can politically sell to them.
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On September 05 2017 14:35 Simberto wrote:
I don't think "raising birth rate" is a long-term solution to anything. The earth might already be overpopulated, and it definitively can't deal with a constantly increasing population forever.
But in our current retirement system, each generation pays for the retirement of the previous one. Which is fine as long as you have increasing population, but becomes harder when you have increasing retirement time and decreasing amounts of people paying for it.
I'd say we need a fix for that structural problem. Something along the lines of having each generation pay for their own retirement is a lot more stable in this regard. The problem with that is that a) you need to squirrel a lot of wealth away, which might not be ideal for the economy, and b) one generation has to bite the bullet and pay for both their parents retirement and their own. (I have a suspicion that that is going to be my generation), which is not something that you can politically sell to them.
There is a very risky alternative. Assuming efficiency keeps climbing fast enough that a lower amount of people can keep up the current level of living for more people. I think it is likely but nobody really knows how it will pan out, previous times major efficiency spikes happened there were still work for people.
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EPT
