Germany Falls into Recession

I can't speak for Germany, but for the US, worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits.

Similarly, it's impossible for worker income to grow at the rate of GDP while taxes grow faster than GDP

Ah yes I don't think that this works that way

> That's non-sense. Germany built more wind and solar capacity per capita the past 20 years than any other country in the world.

How is "but we built more than others" an argument against "CDU/CSU actively worked against renewable energies by implementing 10H"?

The phase out in it's current form was decided by a CDU led government.

"Chancellor Merkel was so shocked by Fukushima that she turned Germany’s energy focus from nuclear (of which she closed 41% and will close the rest within a decade) to efficiency and renewables."

> After all, the German Ministry of Economics is working on a law to subsidize electricity prices for the industry. They wouldn't do that if electricity was cheap.

Nobody said that electricity was cheap, but that the cause wasn't the 5% nuclear going offline.

> Nuclear provides baseload, wind and solar don't.

Baseload is such a dead horse. Renewables are cheaper even with batteries included.

>In fact, since 2022, Germany returned 19 coal-fired power units with a capacity of 7.3 GW to the electricity market:

Yeah to offset Russian gas. We haven't increased coal/lignite production either, and considering that lignite is pretty much burned immediately that's a good indicator that the missing nuclear wasn't offset with coal. You can actually use the very tool you linked (https://www.smard.de/) to see pretty clearly that the phaseout of nuclear didn't increase energy production from coal plants.

> That's non-sense. Germany built more wind and solar capacity per capita the past 20 years than any other country in the world.

Still far below what would have been possible without the "Solardeckel" and the "Altmeier Dip".

> That's a blatant lie. That project was started by SPD/Greens and the Greens even defended it against criticism:

Nordstream planning started in 1997, when Kohl was still Chancelor.

The Greens should have stopped it when they had the chance though instead of blindly hopping onto the bandwagon.

Note that there is not much difference between SPD and CDU to me personally. I consider both conservative parties, opposed to the goals of the greens. The SPD is only less obviously evil than the CDU.

> The Greens have always been fighting nuclear in Germany.

Believe it or not, the new generation of greens would actually prefer Nuclear to Coal if it was cheaper than renewables, but it isn't so they push for renewables. In a sense the present day greens are not really the ones that governed 20 years ago. I hate most greens from that time period with a passion for example, them killing the transrapid is unforgivable for me personally.

> What energy independence?

We managed to get through winter without shortages didn't we?

> And the Greens even have it in their election program:

"New gas utilities and infrastructure needed for the coal-exit must only be build if it is absolutely unavoidable, and if it is build in a Hydrogen ready way."

It's amazing how you read some kind of gas love from this when in reality it's saying the exact opposite, even arguing that gas is only allowed when it can be switched to clean hydrogen for BaSElOaD later.

> The only parties that have sabotaged Germany's electricity grid and climate goals are the Greens with their owngoing FUD campaigns against nuclear power.

Not even Siemens wants to build new Nuclear plants because they are more expensive and take longer to build than simply rolling out renewables.

Would nuclear have been great if we never stopped investing into them, had fast breeder reactors, and didn't loose the knowhow to build them? Maybe. But as is, it's much cheaper, easier, quicker, and more scalable to just throw our entire weight behind renewables.

> I'm really surprised how one can put so much disinformation into a single comment post.

Pot calling the cattle black it guess.

German car makers got lazy with research and development. In addition, they were hesitant to give up their investment in ICE production, risk staff reductions, and corresponding political and strike problems. This lead to most of the knowledge around EVs being developed and patented elsewhere, especially battery knowledge is firmly in Chinese hands.

At the same time the grandparent is also right, China wisely required knowledge transfers (in the form of forced joint ventures) in exchange for production and sales licenses. German car makers stupidly and greedily agreed, providing the Chinese with valuable knowledge about all the other parts of a car.

Both those mistakes now mean that Chinese companies have all the necessary patents and knowledge, as well as experience, for building EVs. Whereas German car makers will need to buy, license and beg for parts in China.

Not to mention that production in China will of course always be cheaper, and bureaucracy easier in the relevant circumstances.

To be fair to those people, the extra low interest rates of 2014-2022 were the historical black swan event which everyone expected to last a couple of years at most and not a decade, but the banks left the money printer running for too long and now we're facing the inflation fallout.

Rates were never in history so low as post 2008. Why would any sane person expect them to last so long?

Yeah when I asked (in France) about variable rates to a credit guy recently he looked at me like I was an alien. They probably still exist, but the loan-happy people won't even try to sell them, to me at least.

Average 30 year mortgage is paid off in 11 years.

There are mortgages with yearly adjustments, but those are rare afaik.

The part in square brackets is yet to come.

They almost certainly did, there are two other groups who may not have done - European politicians ... and European voters.

Although it's more likely that politicians did understand it, but were reluctant to talk about, at least in front of the voters.

Except Italy alas.

That's why we have this massive inflation. No real value is created, yet everybody is flush with the money. Pandemic was just a perfect excuse for BS that is brewing since at least 08 crisis.

This has limitations and reduces how analogous it can be to the US' and its member states.

I think part of the problem is that people see rates of inflation in the news, but their mind thinks in terms of cumulative inflation. They think, "housing has gone up 30% since before the pandemic but the government says inflation is only 9%." Even though, 9% inflation per year over 3 years is 30% total.

Then there's the fact that inflation stats are an average of a "basket of goods". So housing might go up 15%, but that's offset by other items going up 2%. Then there is regional factors, and how inflation is mentally sticky (i.e., people making jokes about the price of eggs, even though wholes prices are down 80% over the past 4 months).

But the big conglomerates that own all the branded products saw an opportunity to jack up prices without taking all the heat.

Speaking of which, if you grab a package of mccormick's chili seasoning off the shelf in your store, it will tell you to buy a 15 oz can of tomatoes. Cans of tomatoes have been 14.5oz for at least a decade, and this seasoning product has had that recipe on the back changed at least 4 times in as many years, yet they never admit to the shrinkflation that happened to those cans of tomatoes.

Title: Dishonest

Could you explain this to me? Government and media are talking about low inflation, but what I am seeing is that prices are exploding.

...they lie, by deliberately calculating incorrectly or sometimes even skipping details. The bad thing is,

it doesn't just happen here. Everywhere in the world all central banks seem to be doing it.

Through their dishonesty they give themselves more opportunities for influence..

...Balances are inflated..

...to trick a part of the population and to make them believe things would get better..

...while the standard of living is moving in another direction..

through highs and lows! You know that. You have to learn to talk to the subordinates to keep them optimistic...

There's no political party left you could vote for if you are in favor of nuclear.

It wasn't their decision, the reactors had to shut down anyway for at least some years, as they are lacking fuel and an up-to-date operating permit. The remaining reactors were already running on their last ounce, and it would take some years to produce new rods at Russia, even if we ignore the political problems.

And that's even ignoring the billions(?) of euro for penalties that Germany likely had to pay in that case, because the whole shutdown was executed somewhat shaky from the old government.