40 out of 60 German climate greening endavours fraudulent | Hacker News Reader

40 out of 60 German climate greening endavours fraudulent

fr.de

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It says here that fraud happened on german side. The chinese company reported that documents have been modified on the german controlling side without their approval, and that potential fraud is happening and they should investigate. However nothing was done.

"Dabei waren die Gefahren Geld nach China zu zahlen für solche Projekte dem Bundesumweltministerium eigentlich bekannt. Zuletzt im April meldete sich ein chinesischer Öl- und Gaskonzern von selbst bei dem von Steffi Lemke (Grüne) geführten Umweltministerium und erklärte deutlich, dass von Betrugsfällen auszugehen ist. „Wir vermuten, dass es eine hohe Wahrscheinlichkeit gibt, dass Dokumente gefälscht wurden und wir bitten dringend, dass Ihre Behörde dazu ermittelt“, teilte der chinesische Konzern dem Ministerium mit. Dieses wimmelte wohl ab, wie die Welt berichtet. Deutsche Prüfstellen haben anscheinend einige Daten der Anlagen des chinesischen Unternehmens geändert und ohne dessen Zustimmung verwendet. "

I understood it in a slightly different way: The multinational oil companies owning these Chinese companies wrongly claimed that these would save millions of tonnes of CO2. The German authorities accepted this claim even though there was reasonable doubt and it could not be verified because China doesn't allow German authorities to come to China and verify it. The way you phrased it made it sound as if Germany (as in the government) was somehow trying to profit from it. However, they are the ones being frauded.

It is reasonable to assume that they are in on it. At the very least they got out of their way not to change it, even when they were being notified about potential fraud.

I also understood it this way (native German). In Germany companies want to claim "as much saved CO2" as possible.

> Das Ziel war, möglichst hohe CO₂-Einsparungen in Deutschland geltend zu machen.

The federal authorities knowingly approved the fraudulent UER projects. What's spicy is that the secretary is a green party member.

> Das Umweltbundesamt und die Deutsche Emissionshandelsstelle genehmigten 75 dieser UER-Projekte – fast ausschließlich in China. Und das, obwohl weitere Hinweise dafür sprachen, besser nicht dort zu investieren. Denn China lässt unabhängige Kontrollen im eigenen Land nicht zu. Peking verweigert entsprechenden Prüfer:innen die Einreise.

Also, apparently a simple look at satellite images should have at least caused suspicion when Chinese companies raised the concerns. There is still no reaction from Steffi Lemke.

> Was Rostek mit dem „Durchwinken“ meint, ist die anscheinend unzureichende Prüfung der Bauvorhaben durch das Umweltbundesamt und die Deutsche Emissionshandelsstelle. Über Satellitenbilder wäre einfach zu erkennen gewesen, dass einige der eingereichten chinesischen Vorhaben schon vor dem eigentlichen Baustart existiert haben.

Hallo, fellow German here.

> The federal authorities knowingly approved the fraudulent UER projects. What's spicy is that the secretary is a green party member.

I am not under the impression that anyone has illusions about the Green party here. It is evident they are greenwashing and destroying environment (for the climate of course) among other things they supposedly "don't stand for". The reasons they get votes still is likely due to choosing the lesser evil, even if that is also untrue, or conscience. I have seen the sentiment here too, so I have no illusions that this is going to change either no matter what the Green party does.

> Über Satellitenbilder wäre einfach zu erkennen gewesen, dass einige der eingereichten chinesischen Vorhaben schon vor dem eigentlichen Baustart existiert haben.

IANAL, but getting money for projects that existed prior sounds legally actionable as fraud even. Tho the plaintiff would be the government in the end, so it might not happen anyway.

> I am not under the impression that anyone has illusions about the Green party here. It is evident they are greenwashing and destroying environment (for the climate of course) among other things they supposedly "don't stand for".

Sources? Details?

Lots of hate, zero substantiation. The greens are the party that pushed environment protection for decades, long before anyone cared.

The problem they have is they are held to a different standard than other parties for one and secondly their programme is thought to be only about ecology. It has become a national sport in France and germany amongst politicians to blame the greens for environmental measures which are constraining for the average citizen. Even when for example in France they are not even in the government.

In Germany their members are regularly attacked (as in violence) due to the amount of hate other parties generated about them.

It’s really sad, and I think we need a party which is strongly for ecology but not called “the greens”, otherwise it’s too easy for populists to bash them.

But, crucially, it seems that the Chinese subsidiaries are the ones that came forward to set the record straight to the German government. So basically it seems to be multinational corporations defrauding Germany by trying to hide behind Chinese laws.

Not "the Chinese subsidiaries". Only one of them.

Oh yes, because China, the #1 polluter in the world (exceeding US, Europe, Russia and Brazil combined together) is very known to be the first and foremost voice in greening endeavours

They would benefit from exposing big western coorporations. By dragging them down, they go relatively up.

isn't China producing more electricity with solar than all other countries combined (with solar)?

No?

It's however (according to China's official statistics) the country with the highest solar energy production.

It also burns the most coal for electricity though, that makes it clear that China just needs an insane amount of electricity. Regardless wherever it's green, brown or toxic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_solar_generation_...

Really? China's co2 emission per capita is half of the US.

and their capita is 4x that of the US.

So, China needs to cut down their emissions to half, to afford the US to continue being the highest per-capita polluter. Sounds about right.

What's your suggestion then? For China to reduce its population by 3/4 (wasn't China heavily criticized for enforcing birth-control?), or to acknowledge that Chinese citizens (or those of any other country with a population greater than that of the US) don't deserve to enjoy the same standard of living as US citizens?

how much of that is because half of the country is still incredibly poor? broke dudes living in coffin apartments and poor rural villagers don't emit a lot of carbon. kinda like their meme about the dude in an apartment who just has a mattress and a PS5 causes less waste, etc.

and their population is 4-5 times larger.

I'm not really sure what your point is...

Okay and? Wouldn't the fact that their population is 4-5x larger also mean that it makes sense for them to pollute more? And regarding your first point, I don't see how that's relevant to China polluting more or less per capita. They still do pollute less per capita.

I wonder why that is...maybe because they manufacture and produce everything?

As an example, my humble homecountry of Switzerland was the fourth-worst CO2 polluter worldwide if you count CO2 by consumption, not production.

China, the country with one of the largest populations in the world, that produces less CO2 per capita than three quarters of Europe, including such green hearts as Germany or Finland, while still producing a quarter of the entire world's goods.

> The way you phrased it made it sound as if Germany (as in the government) was somehow trying to profit from it. However, they are the ones being frauded.

As made evident by the english name of these initiatives (Upstream Emission Reduction - UER), this originates from the EU. It seems that UER is one of the options to achieve greenhouse gases reduction goals set by EU (see [1]). So, allowing your local industries to cheat on UER reporting, does bring in an (unfair) advantage to Germany.

[1] https://climate.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2016-11/guidance_n...

right, because companies stealing from the german government is clearly giving giving the nation a competitive advantage.

Totally true, anything else insight worthy from your side?

The German government was defrauded by German companies collaborating with Chinese companies.

Calling that a competitive advantage is like saying German companies have a competitive advantage because some have been stealing billions of taxes over the last few years via CumEx.

It'd also be the same as saying that India's medicine factories have a competitive advantage because they're able to illegally dumb toxic waste in rural areas, which is currently the world's biggest breeding ground for super bacteria (resistant to antibiotics)

The article doesn't blame China, it's just plainly stating that the currently undertaken initiatives in China are almost all fraudulent. That doesn't mean that Chinese government is stealing from Germany.

> right, because companies stealing from the german government is clearly giving giving the nation a competitive advantage.

It obviously is. We are talking about intra-EU advantage, where the same GHG rules apply. If e.g. French industries actually invest in reducing their GHGs instead of using a fraud scheme, isn't that an advantage?

> Calling that a competitive advantage is like saying German companies have a competitive advantage because some have been stealing billions of taxes over the last few years via CumEx.

Also a competitive advantage. If, let's say now, Spain does more rigorous checks for tax fraud than Germany, then their industry growth is comparatively stifled. And did the participating industries get anything more than a slap in the wrist?

German stakeholders pointing each other, and then everybody pointing outside of Germany may work internally, but is not fooling anyone else on the outside. Germany is totally ok to turn a blind eye on eschewing (supposedly) common EU rules when it is to the advantage of their economy.

> Totally true, anything else insight worthy from your side?

Nein mein herr. Das ist alles mein herr. /s

> And did the participating industries get anything more than a slap in the wrist?

No, they didn't even get that. After all, our Kanzler forgot about it.

I still wouldn't call this a competitive advantage. The only companies that gain this advantage do so through fraud. And Germany has a gigantic problem with corrupt politicians that help fraudulent companies profit.

It's objectively terrible for Germany, and not a competitive advantage. The companies using these schemes do not pay taxes for the most part, so calling that great for the economy is such a gigantic stretch that it's hilarious.

It's great for the politicians though. After all, they always get paid to make the scandals go away.

> Nein mein herr. Das ist alles mein herr. /s

That's fair, I was definitely too aggressive with that statement. Sorry for that.

It just triggers me a little when people blame the nation for the actions of individuals, almost always entirely unassociated with said government. (Wherever that's India, China, the USA or Germany)

After all, what you're calling a competitive advantage is fraud! The issue is that German politicians are just so hopelessly corrupt that no prosecution ever happens. That's the issue we have to address. After all, most companies in Germany are law abiding and do not have a competitive advantage.

Would the CEO of a Multinational oil company lie to you for money?

especially about things related to carbon emmissions?

The German government subsidizes multinational corporations' oil facilities in China. This article mentions "China" too many times, but what does this have to do with China? Isn't it the multinational companies that are suspected of fraud? Not a single name of any multinational corporation is even mentioned in the article.

The part of China in this situation is that the Chinese government does not allow foreign inspectors into China to check if the sponsored projects are actually doing what they claim, and either China does not check these projects itself or does a bad job at it, thus enabling fraud. I don't know why anyone would sponsor a project in China under these conditions in the first place (or anywhere under similar conditions), but that's a different story.

Of course, that does not change that multinational oil companies are the ones conducting the fraud or that a local Chinese competitor fingered them, so that things came to light.

Germans sponsor such projects in China because European emissions aren't growing much and are an irrelevant slice of global output. If you want to subsidize people to reduce emissions you have to go where the emissions are. At this point the developing world completely dominates emissions and emissions growth:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...

China, India and Asia swamp all other contributors in terms of growth and (with the exception of America beating India) also absolute amounts. The entire EU emits around the same as India alone.

> The entire EU emits around the same as India alone.

With only a third of India's population. Don't worry there is still a lot to do in Europe.

> With only a third of India's population.

Therein lies the rub.

The current reality is that US and EU per capita emissions are rather flat ATM whereas those of India and China are on the rise.

There is work to do all about, the EU and US could certainly come down per capita (but by how much) and India and China ideally should be capped (but by whom and how) at less per capita than the EU|US currently .. ideally new technology will achieve that while allowing "modern" expectations of consumption.

The future reality is even should that all come to pass we're still looking at a global net increase in emmissions when ideally we very much want a global reduction.

However we as humans in the world get there it's hardly useful to foster international bickering when we all stand to gain through cooperation.

> The entire EU emits around the same as India alone.

Well, but India is a huge country. It has 3 times the population of the EU.

Which means that pro-capita the EU is emitting 3x more than India.

That's irrelevant though for the purposes of this discussion, which is why are Germans funding projects in China. If you care about absolute levels of emissions the west just isn't relevant. All the decisions that matter are being made in Asia. And as we can see from the fraud rates on these projects, they don't care.

> If you want to subsidize people to reduce emissions you have to go where the emissions are.

Emission is everywhere and EU can work to further reduce the emissions they have. e.g. heat pumps vs Gas heater, insulation. Also, it can be done in Africa, SEA to prevent next big wave of emissions coming from there.

> China does not check these projects itself or does a bad job at it

> I don't know why anyone would sponsor a project in China under these conditions in the first place (or anywhere under similar conditions), but that's a different story.

You answered your question, don't you think?

No, I don't think so. I have a hunch what you are trying to say, but since I try to not second guess, I would like to hear your argument, why and how China's neglect or ineptitude to hold projects accountable would be a positive feature for a sponsor.

If you want to embezzle funds, would you rather do it through a country with strict checks or a country with no checks at all? The choice of China will give a nice cover against an investigation.

The controlling powers will then divert the resources to these jurisdictions. The sponsor (Germany) will not see a net benefit but this is the problem with public funds since they are disconnected from the tax payer.

Thanks for clearing that up! However, we don't have cases of embezzlement but of fraud. Of course the fraudster, ie. the involved corporations, would have an interest in obfuscating their tracks, but the sponsor would not. The controlling power is the sponsor, ie. the federal ministry of environmental protection, and I doubt they wanted to be defrauded. This is why I said I don't get why anybody would sponsor under these conditions. That's a case of ineptitude and neglect, but not malice.

German government defrauded by 40 out of 60 chinese climate projects.

It doesn't have to be fake news if you just know how to sum up a statement.

It's American/Multinational Oil companies defrauding the German government. The Chinese company actually contacted the German government to blow the whistle and say "Hey, those things you have about us are not true".

Everyone is defrauding the German government, including every politician and every other branch of the German government. It has more to do with the Germans than the Chinese.

As a European I am all for China criticism, really. But this is wrong. Chinese companies have raised the concerns and the Green party federal authorities in Germany have knowingly and actively ignored the warnings and continue to do so.

So you got:

- American oil companies defrauding Germans in China

- Chinese companies raising concerns to German authorities

- German Green party authorities actively ignoring said warning which are easily verified. I mentioned Green party because it is not far fetched to claim a political motive given the ease of prevention

The whole idea of crediting someone for 'what they would have emitted' is wrong.

There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'.

Instead we should simply be billing for carbon actually emitted. If you emit less, your bill is smaller.

> Instead we should simply be billing for carbon actually emitted. If you emit less, your bill is smaller.

Poor people have the same human rights than rich people. Therefore it should not be dependent on money how much a person can emit. There should be a hard limit of allowed CO2 emissions per person.

> simply be billing for carbon actually emitted

Many companies (and induviduals) would cease to be viable going concerns if they had to pay for their emissions. The transition from unlimited free poluting to full pay for emissions requires some smoothing and the credit system seems as reasonable as any.

> There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'.

Base it on output - energy generators can output X per GWH, steel mills Y per ton of steel, transport Z per passenger / tonne per mile etc. If you can do it cleaner you have excess credits - dirtier and you pay. This is essentially the system we have today (and it is fantastically capitalist in its design).

What we have is a system where people get paid for counterfactuals; carbon credits awarded for things they didn't do but claim they would have, like getting paid to not cut down a forest. Fraud is easy because investigators cannot be sent to the counterfactual universe to verify the claims.

>the credit system seems as reasonable as any.

It's fraud, pure and simple. I don't know how such a broken system could be "reasonable" for anything. But hey, at least polluters can lie to their customers and claim "their greenhouse emissions have been offset", so I guess capitalistically, it makes sense.

It's just dicking around with a serious problem.

The fundamental issue is an accounting trick has allowed people to offload the true costs on to others.

This is the same trick but it's for the assets column.

The actual impact doesn't change.

If you force companies to "figure out" how to meet a quota for something that isn't as simple as "buy it" this is what happens. Loads of carbon capture projects, even if not outright scams and with good intentions, leave the local area worse off after just a few years.

I worked for a company that genuinely tried to dedicate a % of revenue to carbon recapture and we had a really tough time finding projects that looked somewhat trustworthy.

Headline should be changed to “40 out of 60 in China”

run by companies trading in New York...

German government subsidized fraudulent Chinese "Green" company's.

That is not what the article said. The German government subsidized American/Multinational oil companies who CLAIMED they had environmentally friendly companies in China.

40 out of 60 greening endeavors by the fossil fuel industry fraudulent in China

Maybe founding bicycle paths in peru was actually a better idea.

FYI your joke is based on fake news spread by the German nazi party

https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/radwege-peru-entwickl...

Your own link only claims that the number of 315 million euros is false and that the real number is 44 million euros (20 million spent and 24 million committed for the future).

Actually the article supports this information. The number is just a bit too high.

Quote: "With the pledges from 2022 and the ongoing projects, the grant for cycle highways and the loan for the environmentally friendly bus system, Germany is financing cycle paths and a bus system in Peru with around 199 million euros."

The report says, that China does not allow independent auditors for the subsidised investments to enter the country. This should have been a red flag. It would have been easy to change the policy to only support investments that allow independent auditors.

Nothing new - these setups and situations have been going on since the beginning of the 2000's - here's one of hundreds of articles

https://www.courrierinternational.com/une/une-du-jour-le-mar...

Linking the economy to the environment sounds great but in practice this needs to change.

That's a pretty clickbaity headline (the one here, not the original one).

This is about a special law that allows oil companies to compensate carbon reduction requirements. Which, to be clear, is a big deal, and a major case of fraud. But the headline makes it sound like the majority of all climate efforts in Germany are fraudulent. That's... a very different claim, and not the one in this article.

Is there a single CO2 certificate, which is not fake?

Yes, in a museum's deep vault somewhere, since it's one of a kind.

I wonder if these new-tech oil fields are just those using CO2 to extract more oil... https://www.desmog.com/2024/06/10/carbon-capture-will-extend...

This thread shows to some extent why we are doomed. Half of the comments are focused on if we can blame China or not. While reading cursorily gives clear indication that all of the parties could have caught it and did nothing. Instead of trying to root out corruption near us, we are happy to blame other and do nothing.

And guess what, it's not the Greens to blame, but the party and lobbyist who set this big-oil friendly scheme up in 2015 and renewed it in early 2021. Peak Merkel/Altmaier-era greenwashing enablement, the scaled down PV and Wind in favor for an extended transition period to be run on petrol and russian gas.

The website itself is pretty hostile:

> Continue with ads - ACCEPT ALL

> ...or subscribe to Freechoice - SUBSCRIBE NOW

https://www.cookieyes.com/blog/cookie-law/

I am shocked 20 out of 60 weren't detected for what they are.

Who could have thought that under the protective veil where every critique about a policy or program is succesfully labelled as right-wing, climate-change-denialist, or naz*, corruption would flourish?

This is neither the first nor the last case of illegal activities environmentalism has produced in Germany (Prokon scandal, Graichen scandal, Christmas benefit payments, corona benefit payments, Harald Friedrich etc).

Wait until you find out that we’re giving Shell carbon capture credits for injecting it into NorthSea oil fields to speed up the extraction of … oil.

I wish I was making this up.

I hate such data presentation. 40 / 60 = 67%, this is a figure that we are all used to understanding, just because plenty of things are in percentages.

Or 2 out of 3 - this is something we can relate to as well.

The next one will be 378 out of 2567, quickly is this a lot or not. Sure you would say that 78 is about a third of 1000, and we have about 2.5 thousands so it ... etc. Instead of just saying 15%.

It depends.

40 out of 60 is easier to grasp for many people than 67%.

Percentages are better in cases where the numbers are harder to imagine (like your second example).

It's easy to misread as 40/60 (e.g. split)

This is why I mentioned 2/3 - why keep a reductible fraction?

Shocking...

misleading title

Is it just me or the article is completely in German?

It's a German newspaper, so yeah, it's in German for everyone

That won’t stop all the non-German-speaker commenters from reacting to a translated headline.

> Oil companies are probably cheating German consumers with non-existent plants. Also because Germany had no control? The Environment Committee takes a position.

I'd need a native member of the defrauded to weigh in and confirm the legitimacy of the translation but Chrome seems to have done an ok job?

Looks good to me, I'm a native speaker.

The updated headline reads: "Suspicion of fraud in climate protection: Despite warnings millions have been paid to corporations".

The original headline from the 11th of June reads: "Defrauded of millions: did corporations subvert German climate protection?"

Both are an understatement, the volume in question is up to 4.5 billion EUR since 2020.

Is it just me or is your comment completely in English?

Correct. I just wasn't aware that non-English resources with translated titles were allowed, that's all. Maybe they had an English version available depending on the country or something.

Did you intend the hilarity of your question? xD

Unfortunately not :/

There are a lot of untrue recommendations and its hard to tell who is legit. If you have lost money to scam contact (zattrecoverypro1 ⓐ Gmail Dot Com) they will surely help you out. Took me long to find them

Just another thing Germany managed to totally fuck up. I can't even remember something that was done well for the last, what, 5-10 years? All the politicians we have are a disgrace.

Go on, give them some credit... they signed a deal with Russia to divide Eastern Europe, financed Russian wars, destroyed stability of Europe by forcing idiotic policies, and allowed rise of far right at home. That's something...

They're currently more succesful in fucking up Europe than during their French camping trip in 1939.

Points 1 and 2 sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but I can agree with points 3 and 4, however unplanned it was by the rulers.

Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble were stupid believers in running a country/continent like a family or factory (micro- instead of macroeconomics). If you're in debt, you gotta save. With the Euro crisis and PIIGS (anyone here old enough to remember PIIGS?) inflation problem (caused by the currency pegging masked as a single currency, btw), the continent had a lot of problems. And so Merkel as the de-facto ruler of the EU told everyone to cut social services, social benefits, etc, instead of doing stimulus packages like the Obama admin. The results were more unemployment and destitution, even suicides[1].

And when Merkel decided to show her humane side and allowed Syrians to settle in Germany, it was morally a great move which I agree (how can we call ourselves human if we refuse shelter to humans who are being shot at and bombed - well one way to do it is to not treat them as humans and classify them in our brains, all of them, as cowards (for running away instead of fighting) and lazy benefits-seekers)), but of course for the average Joe European who's been told for many years "There's no money, we have to save", to suddenly hear "We're a prosperous continent, we can do it.", this sounds like a huge truckload of shit. And the half-hearted policy of just sticking these refugees in makeshift camps and probably no budget in proper integration (and TBH, there's probably lazy refugees too, but then again, wouldn't you lose motivation against bureaucracies that don't let you work, confuse you in a language/culture foreign to yours, etc, even though you fought your way out of a warzone on a precarious journey) didn't make it any better.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628

Let me introduce you to this fine German politician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der who "Since leaving public office, Schröder has worked for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom. (...) He was chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft but in 2022 resigned from the latter and opted not to join the board of Russian state-run gas company Gazprom. (...) In his last days in office in 2005 he signed a deal between Germany and Russian state-owned Gazprom to build Nord Stream 1 before leaving office and almost immediately joining the pipeline company’s board." A politician of his calibre cannot function without an extensive support network and connections across the political spectrum. There were a lot of people helping him. It was and still is a broad, cross-party support based on the German Ostpolitik from 1970s. That gives him and the people around him a lot of influence over German and European politics.

The Nord Stream deal was designed to make Europe dependent on Russian natural resources and weaken position of Eastern Europe. It was opposed by Eastern European countries who saw it quite rightly as the next Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... in disguise. But even if we discard their opinions, here's a document prepared by the European Parliament in 2008 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/... Nobody in Europe was fooled by Russians, but German politicians could not or did not want to hear it. Germans kept rejecting all Eastern European objections to the deal and other decisions that followed, including Nord Stream 2.

German politicians crossed the line and began implementing Russian foreign policy in Europe. In 20214 Ukraine paid the price of German Ostpolitik. Here's a good summary of how Germany played this game:

https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-inc-played-russian-r...

and here's an early summary of Germany's behaviour https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2014-04-...

And recently, this information came to light https://www.yahoo.com/news/angela-merkel-concealed-informati...

You cannot have united Europe with a significant member undermining its principles by making it dependent on energy supplies from an aggressive enemy and being an advocate of the enemy's interests. German politicians are compromised to the point where they just cannot see how compromised they are.

We still have a great standard of lifing.

We legalized, this was a great success.

Don't be so negative

see the denial?

> We still have a great standard of lifing.

Which has gone down in the last 10 years. There's absolutely no indication that anything in this regard will improve. All metrics show a downwards trend. Be it homeownership, financial security or even life expectancy. So it's basically just like saying "I inherited billions and I'm still not completely broke. My financial decisions must be awesome".

With climate change worsening, I can't see this improving. Yeah okay right-leaning governments letting corporations getting away with too much shit and shoving more neoliberalism down our throats[1] is probably more to blame...

That's why I fear rightwing populism will keep rising.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-...

Gloom and doom seems to be the sentiment of the day (I feel it, too. I fear a relapse into authoritarian, racist isolationism and protectionism. It makes me depressed.) but with regards to quality of life all available numbers point in a different direction. Granted, the most up-to-date dataset [1] does not draw a simple graph, but it shows a pretty promising development across twelve areas. Combined it looks pretty good to me. Which metrics do you refer to?

Compared to other nations the situation gets even more confusing. The OECD Better Life index [2] places Germany consistently above average. The index is compiled from available data and surveys conducted in the corresponding country. So Germans feel everything is doomed but when asked they rank themselves in most metrics concerning quality of life above average. That does not make sense and I doubt the numbers are wrong. So why are Germans so gloomy? Is it the Mittelschicht-Problem? That's a serious question, because I don't know and it is important.

[1] https://www.gut-leben-in-deutschland.de [2] https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/de/countries/germany-de/

social media bubbles are working here.

especially right wingers (fuelled by russian money, as confirmed more and more) need a doom&gloom environment + some targets to direct the anger/fear to. there is a lot of misinformation spread around, to an extend that group-thinking has already kicked in and confirmation biases are already at play.

the mental gymnastics are sometimes just outright insane: people with quite comfortable household income situations living in peaceful suburbs feeling close to take up arms to revolt against the evil government and those criminal foreigners everywhere (so against hated laws that don't exist in reality, people they never experienced themselves in their hood, general developments that don't affect them or also are not true/framed badly).

the reality is that life in general is good in germany, much better than in many places of the world considering the complete picture, its not getting more dangerous (criminal statistics overall are mostly flat/sinking over the last decades). there are problems, sure, but nothing spectacularly new, like aging population and pension stuff.

could it be better? always, yes. but it seems that any party that slightly tries to solve on of the actual problems gets a devastating amount of public fire (shoot-the-messenger-style) thats nearly to impossible to defend against, nowadays amplified by social media bots to a large extend, which many people are not able to identify.

Just because things change, doesn't mean they change fundamentally into bad or worse territority.

Feeling froggy today? Ribbit! /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Also the healthcare system is unbelievably better than what I experienced living in the UK

I know, saying Germany is better to live in than the UK is hardly much praise, but I will probably stay here for as long as I can just because the quality of life is just so astoundingly better here than it is back home

As much as the politicians the people are to blame. Since at least 10 years whenever anyone becomes critical of anything this is met with denial. You could just vote for someone else, even if the government wants to tell you you're a bad person or rightwing if you do.

No one is telling anyone that they are a bad person for voting "someone else". However, there are some political parties (AFD, NPD) that are led by actual Nazis and that have mass deportation of foreigners as their main goals. If you vote for these people, then yes, you are a bad person and undeniably (very) rightwing.

> No one is telling anyone that they are a bad person for voting "someone else".

> If you vote for these people, then yes, you are a bad person

As a foreigner living in Germany, it’s been incredibly disheartening to become more aware of the level of political discourse here. AfD will continue making huge gains (which I’m absolutely worried about) as long as their opponents continue to reason like toddlers.

So arguing that someone voting for a (court ruled) nazi who wants mass deportation is a bad person is arguing like a toddler?

The AfD still does not believe in man-made climate change.

How are you supposed to reason about that? If AfD members ignore obvious scientific developments, you can't really do much more than present yet another paper saying that yes, man-made climate change is indeed a thing, just for then to ignore it, too.

You cannot reason with someone who does not want to be reasoned with.

You can claim that many policies by the AfD are made in good faith. (I don't believe that, but I'd be willing to entertain the thought.)

But once you get to something like if climate change exists, there isn't really any way you can argue with reason anymore. You are met with pure denial. Denial, which is used as a base for action that is clearly and actively destructive.

> No one is telling anyone that they are a bad person for voting "someone else".

That's exactly how Germany got the current disastrous SPD-FDP-Green coalition, whose approval rating is down to 17% (SPD 14%; Greens 15%; FDP only 4%), the worst since that poll started in 1997. Germany's GDP growth was -0.3% in 2023 (gas pipelines inoperational and nuclear plants mothballed) and 0.1-0.2% in 2024 (stagnation, manufacturing fleeing the country).

> However, there are some political parties (AfD, NPD)... that have mass deportation of foreigners as their main goals.

If you meant "deport German citizens of foreign origin", that's unconstitutional. The AfD knows that, it rowed back from that policy. Even trying mass deportations of non-citizens would be widely opposed and would be challenged in courts (up to the ECJ). Obviously whoever the next govt is (most likely CDU/CSU), will restrict new asylum claims, and possibly enact measures to improve assimilation.

What percent of votes for the AfD are a tactical vote of no-confidence/protest against the mainstream parties? (like how many mainstream French voters tactically voted FN/RN in 2012 and then 2017 Presidential elections to signal no-confidence in Hollande's socialists, Fillon's Républicains and all the others)? (And in 2018-9 nearly until Covid, Macron was still trying to impose carbon taxes disproportionately on working-class households. That's insane. Also shows total contempt for his own electorate.)

So if many of western Europe's voters tactically vote for parties with unimplementable platforms as a message to their preferred mainstream parties to impose more restrictions on immigration, how is that not a democratic exercise in tactical voting? Just like how most parties deliberately campaign on unimplementable policies of taxing/spending/borrowing? (Sunak's current electoral antics in the UK being an example).

The weird pattern of the 2024 MEP elections is that Poland's PiS and Hungary's Fidesz lost voteshare, while many western countries tacked centre-right. The EU consensus will meet in the middle. The next multiyear EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will be more restrictive.

> If you vote for these people, then yes, you are a bad person and undeniably (very) rightwing.

Depends on which election: traditionally in many European countries, voters vote tactically or protest-vote in MEP and/or local elections (~ like the very rough equivalent of voting in midterm elections, for US readers), but then swing back towards the mainstream (or else third-way/independent) in national and/or Presidential elections.

One way to estimate the relative size of the protest vote is to look at the differential between voting in MEP/local elections vs national/Presidential elections. Normally we'd have to wait a year or two to find out, but in the case of France, Macron is rolling the dice on calling a snap national election in three weeks, so we can see those vote differentials then. Should be the most interesting comparative data on France for many decades, by issue, by region, by demographic. Worth noting that France's 2024 MEP election turnout was only 51.5% [0], national election turnouts similar, whereas Presidential election turnout in 2027 will be expected to hit ~80% [1]. So that suggests France currently has tons of disaffected mainstream voters, rather than that everyone swung to the right).

[0]: Evolution of [MEP election] voters turnout per countries and per year, 1979-2024 https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/12/european-elect...

[1]: Voter turnout in the presidential elections in France 1965-2022, by round https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068866/participation-ra...

Aside from their political positions - which are diametrically opposed to mine anyway, so I won't argue about them right now, it would be pointless - they seem to be the most incompetent party around. Corrupt and buyable, just look at Krah and Bystron. Then there was the scandal about leaked chats from a obvious paedophile guy (Holger Arppe), low key criminals like Gunnar Beck who stole something in a shop, etc etc

This is met with denial by their rabid voter base. That party doesn't care about Germans or Germany. They care about lining their pockets. That is all. Where that money is coming from doesn't matter. They will sell out our country to the highest bidder if they could. You can't actually say you care about Germany and vote for that party, it doesn't make sense.

Honestly I don't feel represented by any party at all.

CDU/CSU: Scheuer, Spahn, Merz, Altmaier, Klöckner, ...

SPD: What do they even stand for nowadays?

Grüne: Totally out of touch with reality

FDP: Unfortunately I'm not rich enough for a Porsche

AFD: Just no

Heimat: Just no

BSW: Not sure what to make of them yet

Linke: They are just irrelevant

+ all the other small ones that are also just irrelevant.

I voted ÖDP recently btw. Also irrelevant but idk.

IMHO no party tackles anything important:

* Totally out of hand federalism

* Digital administration

* Education

* Controlled migration

* Climate change

* plus all the other stuff

You forgot "Die Partei", they are good. Or they claim so, haha.

You do realize the main culprit is the industry, or do you belive they didn't know the projekcts were fake?

Same with the botched constructions projects like BER and Stuttgart21.

The government was reduced to be only a contractor because private companies are sop much better and cheaper at doing things /s.

You should realize too that the politicians may have been well aware that the industry is faking.

In the grand scheme, this is (yet) an(other) elaborate scam against the public. Politicians outsource the responsibility of implementing policies to the "market" and pretend they're doing something, just to get votes. The "market" outsources what they promised to implement to the lowest bidder in some distant land with no oversight. And then they can all blame it to "China".

And why did politicians outsource that to the market?

It's not like the industry and certain media companies lobbied for it big time claiming the market is so much better.

Just look who they voted in Germany for the EU. The same party that blocked the energy transition with faulty studies, made Germany dependent on russian resources, botched the nuclear exit leading to large compensation payments, installed a debt break in the constitution that is based on a faulty Excel calculation etc.

Seems to me like people want to get fooled. As soon you tell them the truth they listen to those who promise easy solutions for complex problems.

I agree. It seems to me that people just ... like to forget stuff like that. They just want someone else in charge. And now with the advent of TikTok a certain party frequently targets young people and tells them that there are easy solutions to their problems. Sad thing is, other parties don't seem to get that they need to be where the young people are and provide content that matches what they like to see.

I can also only recommend to read "the invisible doctrine" by goerge monbiot. Sad enough that I can't think of a similar book in German. Or a newspaper that would be able to match the Guardian, for example.

> And why did politicians outsource that to the market? It's not like the industry and certain media companies lobbied for it big time claiming the market is so much better.

Still the politicians' fault if you ask me. It's in their job description to serve the public interest. And it is granted that there will be attempts to influence them.

For this, they are paid well-above the average of a person with similar qualifications, typically granted handsome pension schemes, and afforded many other protections and benefits. All, so they are not financially insecure and susceptible to influence.

If they cave to lobby interests against the public interest, they should be held accountable, and not only on election day.

Of course it's the politicians fault, but voters are to blame too if they fall for campaigns to get rid of those politicians who really want to serve the public interest.

One example is the treatment of Robert Habeck, despite the other errors he made he handled the russian gas crises pretty well. He explained in detail what he wants to do, what the consequences are and why he did it the way he did.

He still gets attacked by right wing media, voters and the industry just because he had to fix what the prebious government botched on behalf of the german industry because they wanted cheap gas. That was a refreshing amount of clear communication from a politician. The result: h is made fun of because he has also written children's books.

Seems like people prefer politicians like Merkel, who said and did next to nothing.

Better fail while you try than do nothing.

Even though I don't really like the Grünen I think Habeck is quite okay. Others:

Scholz: Invisible

Linder: Also quite okay, since he at least seems like some kind of force against overflowing expenses. Could be a bit less invested in his clientele

Faeser: Incompetent

Baerbock: Incompetent

Buschmann: Who?

Heil: Incompetent

Pistorius: Nothing but hot air

Özdemir: Could be okay but was put on a leash

Paus: You can't be this incompetent, I bet on malice

Lauterbach: Quite okay

Wissing: Malicious

Lemke: Who?

Stark-Watzinger: Absolute disaster

Schulze: Useless

Geywitz: Useless

>Linder: Also quite okay, since he at least seems like some kind of force against overflowing expenses. Could be a bit less invested in his clientele

Yes, demanding spending cuts for others but at the same time wants billions of tax cuts.

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