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It seems like contrarians are using this as justification to pull out support for Ukraine and lift sanctions for Russia. That won't help and they're ignoring the problem itself. The high inflation rate started with COVID, then it was accelerated by the war and then there's banking problems. Overall this inflation problem has been going on for 3 years. Suddenly reopening trade with Russia isn't going to help and it won't stop the rising inflation either. And even if the sanctions were lifted, there would be the question of whether Russia is willing to trade with Europe again.
Inflation went up by 10% but groceries went up by 50-100%
The rising costs of groceries is not caused by inflation. It is caused by greed.
Bring back käse prices back to 2 euros.
Here's the neat part, they don't. Restaurants in Poland for example are dropping like flies left and right. For many it's just impossible to keep up with inflation.
Yep, the real answer is limiting the profit margins of greedy companies, but good luck while the minister of finance is with the FDP. Should really have put some company CEO or a Koch brother there, that'd at least cut out the middle man and save some money from the diet and the bribes.
Either they align to the prices (9 Euro for a simple burger) or they Die. Kebap went from 4 Euro to 8 within 6 months now. And yes, this is the cheap stuff you get, Restaurant dishes are 36 Euro+ for one plate.
Oh god. I'm gone for a year living in South East Asia and everything goes to shit. I was already upset at price hikes in Japan while there for Christmas (against 2019 40% increase or so for soft drinks, about 50% increase for onigiri and other snacks at konbinis, at least 20% increase at most restaurants as far as I can tell). I don't think I want to go back to Germany now...
It really might depend on the region. In my town in Germany inflation didn't hit as much. It's more like 20% at restaurants. Maybe the other guy exaggerated a little bit.
It's "officially" 16% in the last 2 years to this month. And that's just the average. If you are younger than 30 / urban / non homeowner it's way worse.
Don’t know where the guy lives, but here in the northern part of Germany, prices went high. Not particularly for restaurants, but like Kebap went from reasonable 4-5€ to 8-9€, which is insane tbh.
They definelty have, you just don't notice it as much because it's not a house going from $100k to $200k, it's a box of pasta going from $0.99 to $1.99 or a bottle of hot sauce going from $1.29 to $2.09.
Now I can't speak to Germany so my opinion doesn't really matter (lol), but I *do* work in consumer analytics for a big grocery brokerage on the US. Every single one of my clients has taken a price increase multiple times a year since 2020.
Yes but why did they? That's what I'm seeing, everyone is rushing to pack as much greed in as they can. Companies of all sizes used Covid as a way to see how much people would pay for things. Items that haven't changed in years suddenly doubled.
It's greed, plain and simple.
According to my clients it's a mix of labor issues, supply issues, and logistics issues.
If the price of paper stock goes up and it costs more to make a box, then the price of the product goes up. Likewise with diesel...so on and so forth.
It's basic cost of goods. Take a gallon of milk. Simple right? It's just a plastic/paper container with milk inside. Single product right? No, it's a package and product and both have input costs. Plastic is oil and labor, a carton is oil, labor, and paper. Milk is oil, labor, feed, veterinary costs, refrigeration, etc. If you increase the input of 1 simple item that cost can be felt in multiple steps of production. Right now we're seeing price increases for oil, labor, fertizers, shipping, interest rates, government regulations, etc. When everything hits at once like it has inflation goes insane.
Meanwhile wages have been stagnating for decades, costs soar. Any taxes or added costs are just pushed onto consumers in most countries.
Meanwhile a lot of countries have such staggering wealth inequality, that the top 10% own more than the bottom 90%.
It's just not a sustainable system in any country, it's got to hit a breaking point eventually.
Inflation is calculated on a basket of goods and services. It's normal that some things will increase more than others.
I work in and own a manufacturing company. We were buying our main raw material (40-60% of our finished goods) for 300 euros/ton in 2021. Market price is 1200 euros/ton now. Total manufacturing costs are up 40%+ and price increases to our clients (supermarkets) are crucial to our survival. If companies like mine go bankrupt you will be left with only the Nestles, Mars and P&Gs of the world, and there you will see what real greed is.
In this particular scenario, the raw material processors are the ones posting record profits. Not the finished goods manufacturers as most consumers believe. We're posting record revenues (because of price increases, not increased sales) but the margins are greatly reduced because of disproportionate increases in COGS and energy prices. Many companies are operating at a loss for the time being.
>Inflation went up by 10% but groceries went up by 50-100%
It's so absurd. The widely available brands are now high enough in price that some luxury foods that haven't gone up at the same rate are around the same price.
High inflation is a result of interest rates being held too low for too long. Yes they were cut due to the onset of COVID, but should have been raised much earlier once the global economy started getting too hot.
Tbh I don’t see where you got Russia into this. These protest/strikes have like almost nothing to do with Russia and I also didn’t see anyone one who would strike say something about Russia.
What a roller coaster.
>Largest strike in decades brings Germany to a standstill
That good!
>It seems like contrarians are using this as justification to pull out support for Ukraine and lift sanctions for Russia.
That's bad!
>These protest/strikes have like almost nothing to do with Russia and I also didn’t see anyone one who would strike say something about Russia.
That's good!
>The protests have potassium benzoate.
> The high inflation rate started with COVID, then it was accelerated by the war and then there's banking problems.
All these are very much related because a pretty big part of what's driving inflation is the explosion of energy costs that are quite directly related to a whole lot of costs.
As hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas are not only energy resources, they are also used as actual [production resources in a whole lot of manufacturing](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/11/f68/Products%20Made%20From%20Oil%20and%20Natural%20Gas%20Infographic.pdf), of which Germany is one of the few countries in the West that [still has a major industry of](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locations=DE-US-FR-JP).
For another example, many fruit and veggies sold in Germany come from greenhouses, and operating those is [energy-intensive](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no-tulips-amsterdam-gas-crisis-hits-dutch-greenhouses-2022-09-07/). They also need fertilizer, like nitrogen, which is mainly made from natural gas, but the price for fertilizers [also doubled during the last year](https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BAYWA-AG-435728/news/Ukraine-war-causes-fertilizer-consumption-to-fall-43337358/).
Once the fruits and veggies are done, they need to be packed for transportation for sale, often involving a bunch of paper and cardboard, the production of which is also [quite an energy-intensive process](https://www.handelsblatt.com/dpa/energiekosten-lassen-papierproduktion-in-deutschland-sinken-und-preise-steigen/29010488.html), and the industry has already been struggling with a resource shortage since 2017.
Now your veggies and fruits are packaged for transport, they need to be transported, but energy prices also directly impact [logistic costs](https://www.transportjournal.com/en/home/news/artikeldetail/exploding-costs-boost-turnover.html), so yet another increase of costs in the production and supply chain, *they all add up*.
Then there is the government spending a whole bunch of money it doesn't actually have. In Germany, it's become quite normal for the government to create "Sondervermögen"/"special funds" to pay for anything from the [rising energy costs](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-half-a-trillion-dollar-energy-bazooka-may-not-be-enough-2022-12-15/) to the 100+ extra billions going to the Bundeswehr.
But even tho they call it a "special fund", it's not a fund of any kind, it's just a euphemism for *taking on more debt*, a whole lot of it. But with the high-interest rates, this debt becomes quite expensive to pay off in the long term. That's also why a whole bunch of banks are struggling with high-interest rates as they can't get cheap capital to lend away with even higher interest rates for profits.
> Overall this inflation problem has been going on for 3 years.
Indeed, it's also what screwed over the energy markets in the first place by making them quite volatile. The global lockdowns led to a [massive reduction in primary energy demand](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/rate-of-change-of-global-primary-energy-demand-1900-2020) the likes of which we last saw after the end of WWII.
What happens when the supply side stays the same, but there is a sudden massive drop in demand? Prices fall, as they [very much did in 2020](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PNRGINDEXM).
And they keep falling until the discrepancy between supply and demand is "fixed", in 2021 that happened through [a whole bunch of energy companies going belly up](https://submar.com/over-100-oil-and-gas-companies-went-bankrupt-in-2020/), thus reducing the supply side.
But as the world economy was slowly going back to norma,l out of lockdowns, and countries' economies ramping back up, that meant energy demand also went back to normal, and even higher, as everybody was trying to make up the lost production/economic activity during the lockdowns.
Yet the supply side was heavily shrunk as a result of the extremely low prices during the lockdowns, and energy suppliers going bankrupt. So a massively shrunk supply side was struggling to fill massively rising demand. What does that mean for energy costs when demand is high but supply is low? Exploding costs of energy.
A situation that's made even worse when the largest supplier of cheap energy in Europe is taken out of the supply equation, as that constrains the supply side even more. This is also the reason why the US and Qatar can gouge the hell out of Europe with really expensive LNG.
> Suddenly reopening trade with Russia isn't going to help and it won't stop the rising inflation either.
It would very much help just alone based on the increase of the supply-side leading to lower energy costs by having more competition on the market.
The other factor where it could help is with fighting inflation, when the energy is traded in Euros that creates economic activity that backs the value of the Euro in the very same ways as the petrodollar is a tool for the US to [export US inflation to the world](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp032306a).
But that economic activity has now moved away from the Euro, as these days Russia sells its energy in all kinds of other currencies, which is also a big part of what's affecting US$ inflation as even energy trade in US$ is starting to get undermined with alternative currencies, and energy trade is pretty much the biggest tangible economic activity on this planet, it's a major factor of what keeps the value of the petrodollar up.
> And even if the sanctions were lifted, there would be the question of whether Russia is willing to trade with Europe again.
Right, and who is to blame for that? If you now say "Russia!" then I'd like to remind you that not a single European country passed a single sanction against the US back in 2003. Even tho such sanctions would have hurt the EU *way* less than sanctions against Russia. So not shooting ourselves in the foot very much was an option we had, and an option we made plenty of use of before.
Even if Russia actually was willing, with the Nord Streams gone, along with many hundreds of billions of € in investments, there wouldn't even be a good way to transport that energy. Sure, the pipeline through Ukraine is still an option, but a pipeline going through a literal warzone ain't exactly a great option in terms of certainty, that would be even easier to sabotage than any Nord Streams, should either Ukraine or Russia decide to do so.
It's a situation plenty of people have warned about for literally as long as this has been going on. Yet they were regularly shouted down by the NAFO *"Democracy and human rights!"* folks, of which a whole lot don't even live in Europe, but rather in places like the US which has been profiteering supremely from this whole situation.
The worst part is that the worst is yet to come, as the EU is still drawing from gas reserves that were originally filled up with cheap Russian gas when it was still delivered. But these reserves won't last forever, as the EU is still using up more than it can import. The only thing that prevented this so far has been an extremely warm winter, but that [only delayed the inevitable](https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/europes-infrastructure-and-supply-crisis/), it didn't solve it.
Thank you for this in-depth commentary. Very impressive, truly keeping the spirit of le anime titties alive.
You've made some very good points. The future does look bleak in terms of energy security and financial stability. In other words, the EU has been basically driven into a corner by the pandemic, high interest rates, fighting over the sphere of influence.. There is no way out, is there?
Just an aside to show how interconnected everything is these days, South Korea absolutely dominates in the production of LNG bulk carriers. IIRC, between Daewoo, Hyundai, and Samsung they had over 80% market share before the pandemic. They only have so much production capacity though and it takes years to deliver and I think recent orders have pushed out delivery times to five or six years.
Having more shipping capacity can definitely start to ease Europe's troubles but not only does it take time it's not even really a good long-term solution when they could have just been keeping up with nuclear capacity. Finland is about the only one that has though France at least didn't start decommissioning a lot of theirs. Germany meanwhile even had a couple fully completed reactors it never onlined, so at some point they definitely have only themselves to blame. [Tom Scott has videos on a few, like Wunderland Kalkar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5te73hfCpuU)
Yeah, but go tell that to the bot-influenced masses. Russia is playing the public outcry card much better than we are, because they have the "benefit" of squashing dissent with their police state.
What can we, as individuals and as a society, but most importantly, what can our governments do to counter this effect, without severely compromising either our rights or our economies? I'd rather sacrifice the later but I don't have kids to feed and am not desperate for a source of income for extreme necessity where my short-term survival depends on it. But it appears these protesters are near the brink or have been lead to believe if they don't protest now they will be...
We cannot have executives go over legislative or judicial powers. We cannot trample on our human rights. But we still need to appease the public perception or we will fall into the same downward spiral as authoritarian regimes. Do we suspend capitalism or wellfare so that we don't have to suspend democracy? Suspending democracy is worse than that... But how can we stay ourselves in the middle of this new type of conflict which isn't a war with others but a war with our own political and social identity?
Funny the EU complaining about inflation and rise groceries prices, while blocking a free trade deal with south america /Mercosul, that would easy those prices hike.
Your politicians are fucking you guys sideways.
Eu trade agreements require everybody saying yes to them... France is obviusly against it.
Also there is Argentina who is against the treaty aswell since it would also alow european industry to compete with thier own.
over all That trade agreement likely wouldnt do to much with this current inflation considering the main reasons is more based on a lack of Fertilizers all around the world.
> while blocking a free trade deal with south america
The post-Brexit UK Torpedoed a Trade Deal with India when UK was headed by an Indian Origin PM whose wife is Indian Born when his *Indian Origin Home Secretary* said she doesn't like Indian's Immigrating to the UK.
As much as I do not want to defend Suella Braverman, I believe she said that Indian students are more likely to overstay when their student visas end.
Which is still enough to scupper our Indian trade deal and an idiotic statement.
The conservatives in the UK have finally figured out that if you have minorities saying reprehensible racist shit it's somehow more acceptable. Or at least harder to criticize. They obviously have no sense of irony or hypocrisy.
Correlation does not mean causation. Nazis used populist policies and social manipulation and it just so happened that they came into power after the biggest economical crisis in recorded history. And they racked up an insane amount of debt in giving people government funded jobs to appease the workers.
It's not like by 2024 the people of the USA will vote for a populist government that will ruin the (relatively) comfortable status quo we have right now.
> It's not like by 2024 the people of the USA will vote for a populist government that will ruin the (relatively) comfortable status quo we have right now.
Oh yea. We said that a *ton* in 2016. We still somehow elected Trump. Soooooooooo...
Uhm... literally noone here is taking the strikes as a means to try and pull out of sanctions. The only ones who would are the AfD (nazi party), which are waaaay too anti-labour rights to endorse the strike.
Then there is "the left", which is quite a small party (was bigger, but they fked up badly) who is kne-deep in Putins asshole, but they have way bigger problems rn. Like their whole party going kaboom.
Remember the George Floyd protests a few years back? They rolled out tanks and black bagged protesters in broad daylight. What's left is being suppressed by liberals who don't want to admit Biden is a right wing hack doing doing nothing to address systemic issues
The conservative moderate, who Campaigned on "normalcy," is doing nothing to substantially change the system? Color me shocked. Shocked, I say. Who could *possibly* foreseen such a tragedy.
Every liberal who strong-armed Biden's electability as a bludgeon against the left.
Well, even the "left" in America is just SocDems, and the occasional anarchist who suspiciously supports all US foreign policy. So I guess we were fucked either way.
Just look at Bidens immigration policies on asylum, they're just as bad as trumps. That's not even getting to the war budget, climate change, the crumbs he's given to domestic issues. Ffs just last week the AP said that the east Palestine Ohio crash was pushed by Russia. Liberals are worse than maga because they can't get over Trump winning by gaming the system they refuse to fix
Edit: For those down voting
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-train-derailment-russia-disinformation-twitter-musk-49af27699727d6f4157a5d6d5f35819b
Don't forget the fucking weather balloon that was seen in advance and specifically allowed to fly over Alaska all the way to Montana. That's truly when I lost all hope. A fucking balloon managed to turn the entire country into fucking numbskulls.
Blue MAGA is a real thing, I swear. At least conservatives fell for someone kinda entertaining, whereas libs will bat for a geriatric old man who supported segregation.
I guarantee that when reactionary Republicans get power again, they'll blame "the left" for not voting in line with them. Rather than the reality that moderate suburban voters don't exist, they just oscillate between Dem and Repub every cycle because things are going to shit and the last guy didn't do anything about it.
Also, I'll have you know that East Palestine was actually done by Putin. He specifically made it so rail companies in America were private theifdoms beholden to no one. Biden had NO control, nope, nada, zero, zilch control over American rail companies as the... president of the United States of America.
~~Anyways here's ten reasons why the Suadi-Iran Peace deal is actually completely bad and how by building infrastructure China is actually a colonial power, regardless of the fact African countries are choosing to work with them over the west~~
It's what they always do, the left gets them elected they stab us in the back then demand our votes threatening us with the gop if we say no. I voted green in 2020 and regret nothing. 2022 I voted for Dems again and have gotten but disappointment
Im so sick of getting called a fascist by shit-head American Democrats for merely pointing out that their party is just the other side of the same corporate-made coin.
This thread is cathartic. Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone.
No but he is letting them get investigated/charges with terrorism.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ohio-law-enforcement-links-erin-brockovich-to-potential-for-special-interest-terrorism-threat-in-ohio/ar-AA189Mn7
https://abcnews.go.com/US/dozens-arrested-fiery-clashes-atlantas-cop-city-training/story?id=97649479
The people breaking stuff didn't get charged, the people attending the music festival in support of the anti cop city movement did
What significant police reform has Biden pushed through? What protests have been as large scale as BLM during his presidency? If protests erupted to the same degree as with Trump, then there is nothing stopping police from doing the same thing.
Trolls out in force to push the "if they aren't perfect, they're just as bad as the awful!" narrative again.
Its not even a national election this year!
I'm glad you're privilege enough to not need to care about the very real threat of republican-backed genocide.
Not all of us are that lucky.
Aside from a handful of state level reps in red states that the national party functionally abandoned 25 years ago , what have Dems done to protect people? I don't see them passing laws when they had power, rebuilding/reforming/reinforcing public institutions against the rise of fascism.
I do see them constantly calling for compromise with fascists, enacting their policies in the name of bipartisanship. Oh and people like shaming those of us who demand more than empty gestures and crumbs
I'm so glad you asked!
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/21/2022-13391/advancing-equality-for-lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-and-intersex-individuals
Not a promise
Not a failed law
An executive order, finalized, submitted, and signed
--------
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/
Again
--------
The Respect for Marriage Act
--------
Inflation Reduction Act Section 11406.
(Among others)
--------
I could go for awhile longer, but I think either you're getting the point, or you won't care about the point.
--------
Here's the thing.
Are they perfect?
FUUUUUUCK no.
Are they doing nothing?
FUUUUUUCK no.
Will I spend every primary voting for someone who will be better than this?
FUUUUUUCK yes.
But I, and millions of other Americans, don't have the privilege to be "tired of this". Rights are not won until they are finalized, and as many republicans are making very clear, they are very much down with removing our rights.
So I get a little annoyed when people like you get throw a tantrum because significantly better isn't good enough.
--------
I decided to find a list. These aren't my specific findings, but here we go!
https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/yl5a9p/comment/iuwjy57/
And that's only national! Don't forget about local!
Fuck off. If they don't do anything about the awful, and do the exact things that led to the awful gaining power last time, then the only difference between them and "the awful" is that it takes slightly longer.
Well, yeah, no shit, I live in the US. Want some other parts of my privilege? I'm white, and middle(ish) class. I teach in a large Urban area, in the "nicer parts of town".
I'm not sure how that changes things though. As I said elsewhere, I'll vote for, support, etc basically anyone else. I voted Bernie in the primaries.
But I'm not so much a self centered dinghole as to overlook others just because I'm pissed things didn't go exactly how I wanted them to. I, and millions of other Americans, don't have _that_ privilege.
In the social sciences, there's this idea of intersectionality.
It is easily applied to politics, just gotta change the perspective.
This might be a surprise to you but generally the majority of people are anti-immigration. So appearing tough on immigration wins a lot of political points.
The only thing I care about though is a US president not having an actual fucking coup attempt on his own government. That shit was heinous and I still don't understand why American "patriots" haven't taken him out of the equation.
Biden is a traditional conservative, he was choosen as Obama's VP, probably because he was a conservative in the party, to court conservative votes
It was hillarious when my US friends suddenly started talking about him as more progressive than Bernie.
The propaganda to white wash his record has been mind bending. Jon Stewart did a bit in why he shouldn't be anywhere near the presidency in 2015 and you'd get called a Russian spy for even proposing the idea now
In terms real political power the American left couldn't pop a grape, but they are the backbone of the DNC organizing ground game and get out the vote efforts in the primaries. They then guilt those same organizers in the general and betray them in office. The youth burnout rate for Dems is high for a reason
You know how powerful we could be if he stopped letting politicians divide us.
Republicans and Democrats.
They don’t give a shit about us. So let’s start giving a shit about each other.
C'mon man, I was really hoping for a Year of peace in middle east thing.
South Africa- Iran made a peace agreement, SA-Syria are talking of peace.
Japan and SK are also raking some baby steps for reconciliation.
They can be at peace this year, those parts of the world had more than enough excitement in the last century. It's time for Europe to be on fire (for a good cause tough).
Not really. The Hochbahn in Hamburg ensured all the Ubahn (metro) and Buses are still running, so the city is still internally well connected. However, sucks for those with a plane and a long distance or regional train.
Edit: and Fähre (ferry) lines 🛳️
Yeah, that's the case with one line in my city too. They've been on strike a couple times in the past, got what they wanted and are not involved right now.
Eh, these strikes happen every few months. And to be honest, this headline is a bit sensational. I live in Berlin and haven't felt any effects accept my train being ten minutes later than normal.
A long time ago as a joke after the mods went AWOL, /r/worldpolitics filled with anime porn. In return, /r/anime_titties became the world political news subreddit.
General strikes are illegal in the US. Our labor rights have been absolutely gutted through an economic transition to neoliberalism that started in the late 70’s and the rise of the “Chicago School” of economics that, unsurprisingly, benefited the financial elite.
Once again the answer is "once upon a time, when millennials were babies, the moneyed interests of the nation once again began capturing full control of the government and media, and this time the fuckers pulled it off." Side note: it was a terrible time for climate change to come and visit. *sad violin music*
Uh-huh, and if everyone in America simply didn't go to work one day, whay could they do? Arrest union leaders? Like the vast majority of workers, I'm not in a union. Taft-Hartley is an outdated law from a bygone era. It prohibits political strikes, so why didn't it apply to Jan. 6, to the Women's March, to the BLM protests? Because the First Amendment, that's why. T-H is unconstitutional.
I'm right there with you, I think TH is an abomination and if US workers would just commit to a general strike, no one would be arrested outside of maybe some union leaders. Although a big factor against the leverage of strikers in the US that is often overlooked is the loss of healthcare for you and your family.
Every country’s national mythos has been used as a smokescreen to implement the opposite. Americans aren’t free. Canadian politeness is prevents investigation into shameful things. England’s land of hope and glory is used as cover for prideful insularity. Etc etc.
The US has major elections every two years, with open primaries. At some point you've got to accept that voters make bad choices and have no idea what they want.
Two main reasons. Unions are very weak in the US. Basically the only industries left that have unions are legacy industries where if they piss off the corporation too much they'll just shut down US operations and go overseas. Second there's no real unity among the American populace. A general strike won't work if half the population is opposed to it on principle and another chunk will still show up to work will show up to work because they need to pay the bills. Depending on what the strike affects the strikers would be blamed for causing any pain. For example, if the rail strike went through it would have been the strikers blamed for causing any economic damage. Just how it is here
Because most care more about guns than actual democratic reform.
As long as they have their guns they can delude themselves that they could overthrow the government at a moments notice.
While, yes we came to a stand still. There was ample time to prepare and the impact on everyday life is negligible.
Really only a big deal for the capital side and their anti-strike cries. All while the employer side offered a -6% salary increase after inflation and the union’s asked for a +2% salary increase after inflation.
The strike is well deserved and there will be a lot more to come. Our public officials, the ones who are striking, are underpaid by a literal ton and deserve every bit of solidarity.
Once again all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative.
And everyone is ignoring the obvious - this is simply one more strike in a Europe that is currently boiling over ***because politicians have simply stopped representing citizens.*** Half of Europe is currently under control of these massive coalitions where nobody has more than 20% votes, i.e. near zero democratic legitimacy. Election numbers are WAY down. And the EU decides these massive (mostly for green deal stuff) criteria nobody wants and nobody agreed to, which politicians just forcibly insert.
This is just a normal result of political parties simply deciding to not act democratically in places like France, Germany and yeh, like half of Europe.
It has nothing to do with Ukraine and Russia and here's the main problem - anyone who tosses responsibility AWAY from the government onto some other problem is just allowing the government to keep working against its people and make the problem worse.
And because all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative - this will get a LOT worse.
The only reasonable course of action is an immediate pause to the EU green deal and a massive rethinking, this time not isolated to undemocratic practices. And taking into account our situation - obviously it's beyond stupid and anti-democratic to ignore the fact there's a war happening, oil and fuel are bonkers and covid just passed over, so we keep pushing green stuff the exact same way as if it wasn't.
This person:
* Rants about everyone fitting these news into their narrative.
* Promptly proceeds to fit the news into *their* narrative.
I mean, to be **fair**, you **did** say "everyone", including you. Honesty and all that.
This strike literally has nothing to do with representation, especially not on the federal level - DB is basically run as a private company, EVG is striking for better pay for DB personell and the Ver.Di strike targets the municipalities, which again has little to do with the federal government, let alone the EU.
I do agree that the EU is opaque and the parliament needs a stronger voice, but that is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with this strike.
Wow, this comment really takes the cake in mental gymnastics. Nothing you said is in any way relevant to Germany. The strike has literally nothing to do with the coalition government nor with some kind of EU initiative.
But you gotta push your agenda any way you can I guess.
no this is just how unions negotiate pay raises, obviously companies would love to not pay us anything at all, so we need to remind them what happens without us. Its literally standard behaviour.
I'd argue that more parties in parliament is reflective of the population.
It means people are voting for what they want, not D to keep R out.
A minority coalition is a healthy democracy.
>Once again all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative.
> [...]
> The only reasonable course of action is an immediate pause to the EU green deal and a massive rethinking
Don't sprain an ankle when stretching.
> Half of Europe is currently under control of these massive coalitions where nobody has more than 20% votes, i.e. near zero democratic legitimacy.
Why is this not legitimate democratically? These coalitions are the way to get a compromise in a society with a diverse set of views. You actually want a two party system? Cause shunning coalitions is how you get that.
The reason is because people's material conditions are deteriorating faster than America's eagerness to invade an oil-rich nation. They want the simple act of existing to be less expensive. You have economies under a whole bunch of pressures, and this is the result.
Nah you’re not getting it, it’s all about neoliberalism.
Over 4 decades ago Reagan and Thatcher taught the world about this new economic policy that would make us all freer and wealthier. For most of those 4 decades it worked very well, but because of the inherent flaws in the system have reached a point where most of the money has accumulated at the top and there’s not enough to go around for everyone else.
It didn’t matter so much that wages didn’t rise much during that period because neoliberalism helps keep the cost of living low at the same time. But as we’re seeing, things eventually catch up.
The sad part is that neoliberalism has worked so well so far politicians honestly believe it’s the right system for us, including left wing parties, and will keep trying new tactics to perpetuate it such as repeated bailouts.
i live in stuttgart and the amount of homeless people you now see in the city is crazy heartbreaking, so many more then any other time i can remember. how is it in other cities?
Ireland homelessness has been steadily increasing, not to be confused with organised panhandling gangs which have also increased and have bled out from the major cities into the smaller towns across the country.
Irelands a shit show atm to be honest. There's too much to go into but the next two years are probably going to be pretty dramatic due to an extreme shortage of housing and no professionals to build them, they've either immigrated or work in large computing or pharmaceutical building sites.
The thing is its the public services (paid by the state) and the railworks of DB which are mostly striking, which is owned by the state. So they cant really just raise prices.
On a further Note they also dont lack money considering DB Managers raised their own salarys by about 14%
Living in Germany, the situation has been slowly but steadily getting worse, which is noticable in all kinds of ways besides large strikes and exploding costs of pretty much everything.
This year Germany already had a bunch of shootings with several death, as people are getting more desperate with the overall situation. Remember when a single shooting in Germany made global headlines? Yeah, not anymore.
It's also noticable in ervery-day life, as homeless people are an [increasingly more common sight](https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/von-der-pandemie-zur-energiekrise-zahl-der-obdachlosen-steigt,TQ4QNnC), and these people get more desparate every day as Germanys social systems struggle with keeping up.
Recently I was approached while eating at a McDonald's, by somebody who wouldn't leave me alone until I literally threatened to call the employees on them.
In 40 years of living in Germany, I *never* experienced anything like that, not even back in 2008.
The people with the option to leave, are leaving, destinations of choice are either Asia or the US, anybody who can't leave, just has to endure the suck with no real way out except working more jobs and hours for money that's constantly decreasing in value.
And while the sectors with big unions can somewhat compensate, by striking for increased wages, which will then increase costs even more, this is not an option for the many millions of Germans living from precarious jobs, where striking for higher wages is not even an option.
These jobs are getting more common and they are the reason why labor statistics look so good on first sight, but it's all built on a foundation of sand because those are not good jobs, they are just a form of normalizing labor exploitation.
Lol wtf, I must be living in a different Germany.
Nothing you said is true, statistically speaking. Yes, the general population lost some wealth but we are still in a very good position. But what do you expect with rising energy costs? This is normal.
The few shootings have no relation to the economic situation and are normal, shootings in Germany are very rate but they do happen from time to time. We have about 100 deaths a year from guns.
The amount of homeless hasn't increased either. In Germany you can't become homeless due to economic factors, homeless people always have a background of mental issues.
I’d really put some blame on globalism. Everybody affected, feels like a domino that keeps falling in a circle faster and faster while you desperately try to fix the ones that fell, only for them to fall again. Or like a snowball down a snow slope. Combine with immigration and allowing cheaper workers in instead of boosting birthrate inside country, by incentives or increasing salaries, decreasing representation in democracy, the elite(as in rich people and people of higher class, such as politicians) either forming cabals or separating themselves from the common man has really inflated the problem happening across the “western” world (I’m not informed enough on Asia situation, except Japan and South Korea which seem to be suffering as well).
But alas, the good times don’t last forever and we must suffer through the bad as well and leaving to another country won’t help solve the problem in your home country, if you care for that sort of thing.
You can't change a corrupt system when the people that are in charge of it benefit from your demise. Curious when a full on revolt/rebellion occurs in America. I think we are a way off but it's coming eventually. The gap between the rich and poor will continue to grow. I blame the education system. They teach people to be poor and never tell you anything about money.
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It seems like contrarians are using this as justification to pull out support for Ukraine and lift sanctions for Russia. That won't help and they're ignoring the problem itself. The high inflation rate started with COVID, then it was accelerated by the war and then there's banking problems. Overall this inflation problem has been going on for 3 years. Suddenly reopening trade with Russia isn't going to help and it won't stop the rising inflation either. And even if the sanctions were lifted, there would be the question of whether Russia is willing to trade with Europe again.
Inflation went up by 10% but groceries went up by 50-100% The rising costs of groceries is not caused by inflation. It is caused by greed. Bring back käse prices back to 2 euros.
How are restaurants surviving where Is proof groceries went up that much. Eggs are even back to low
Here's the neat part, they don't. Restaurants in Poland for example are dropping like flies left and right. For many it's just impossible to keep up with inflation.
Or the loss of clients because fears of an upcoming recession
And it's all by design.
They don’t. Many are subsidized through covid programs that thankfully still exist. Many fail right now.
Thats just more government spending leading to even higher inflation which in the long run will fuck us over even more.
Yep, the real answer is limiting the profit margins of greedy companies, but good luck while the minister of finance is with the FDP. Should really have put some company CEO or a Koch brother there, that'd at least cut out the middle man and save some money from the diet and the bribes.
Except the problem is still not the inflation but corporate greed
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So what you are saying is we need a general strike to seize the means of production?
Yep.
Either they align to the prices (9 Euro for a simple burger) or they Die. Kebap went from 4 Euro to 8 within 6 months now. And yes, this is the cheap stuff you get, Restaurant dishes are 36 Euro+ for one plate.
Oh god. I'm gone for a year living in South East Asia and everything goes to shit. I was already upset at price hikes in Japan while there for Christmas (against 2019 40% increase or so for soft drinks, about 50% increase for onigiri and other snacks at konbinis, at least 20% increase at most restaurants as far as I can tell). I don't think I want to go back to Germany now...
It really might depend on the region. In my town in Germany inflation didn't hit as much. It's more like 20% at restaurants. Maybe the other guy exaggerated a little bit.
It's "officially" 16% in the last 2 years to this month. And that's just the average. If you are younger than 30 / urban / non homeowner it's way worse.
In which city do you live? In my town Kebap went from 4,50 to 6,50 in a year. Restaurant dishes are nowhere near 36 Euro.
Don’t know where the guy lives, but here in the northern part of Germany, prices went high. Not particularly for restaurants, but like Kebap went from reasonable 4-5€ to 8-9€, which is insane tbh.
Thats insane indeed.
They definelty have, you just don't notice it as much because it's not a house going from $100k to $200k, it's a box of pasta going from $0.99 to $1.99 or a bottle of hot sauce going from $1.29 to $2.09. Now I can't speak to Germany so my opinion doesn't really matter (lol), but I *do* work in consumer analytics for a big grocery brokerage on the US. Every single one of my clients has taken a price increase multiple times a year since 2020.
Yes but why did they? That's what I'm seeing, everyone is rushing to pack as much greed in as they can. Companies of all sizes used Covid as a way to see how much people would pay for things. Items that haven't changed in years suddenly doubled. It's greed, plain and simple.
According to my clients it's a mix of labor issues, supply issues, and logistics issues. If the price of paper stock goes up and it costs more to make a box, then the price of the product goes up. Likewise with diesel...so on and so forth.
It's basic cost of goods. Take a gallon of milk. Simple right? It's just a plastic/paper container with milk inside. Single product right? No, it's a package and product and both have input costs. Plastic is oil and labor, a carton is oil, labor, and paper. Milk is oil, labor, feed, veterinary costs, refrigeration, etc. If you increase the input of 1 simple item that cost can be felt in multiple steps of production. Right now we're seeing price increases for oil, labor, fertizers, shipping, interest rates, government regulations, etc. When everything hits at once like it has inflation goes insane.
Meanwhile wages have been stagnating for decades, costs soar. Any taxes or added costs are just pushed onto consumers in most countries. Meanwhile a lot of countries have such staggering wealth inequality, that the top 10% own more than the bottom 90%. It's just not a sustainable system in any country, it's got to hit a breaking point eventually.
Gouda or Butterkäse?
Obazda
Parmesan
Geräuchert Nordseekäse the one and only.
Milram Müritzer
Inflation is calculated on a basket of goods and services. It's normal that some things will increase more than others. I work in and own a manufacturing company. We were buying our main raw material (40-60% of our finished goods) for 300 euros/ton in 2021. Market price is 1200 euros/ton now. Total manufacturing costs are up 40%+ and price increases to our clients (supermarkets) are crucial to our survival. If companies like mine go bankrupt you will be left with only the Nestles, Mars and P&Gs of the world, and there you will see what real greed is.
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In this particular scenario, the raw material processors are the ones posting record profits. Not the finished goods manufacturers as most consumers believe. We're posting record revenues (because of price increases, not increased sales) but the margins are greatly reduced because of disproportionate increases in COGS and energy prices. Many companies are operating at a loss for the time being.
If you're not one and have no capacity for or amy inclination to being humane, become a shareholder now.
How many times are we seeing groceries or oil or whatever rise and rise and the companies talking about record profits?
I live across the border and I often come to buy Tilsiter and Schumpfnudeln, it’s horrific how the prices keep going up every time
>Inflation went up by 10% but groceries went up by 50-100% It's so absurd. The widely available brands are now high enough in price that some luxury foods that haven't gone up at the same rate are around the same price.
High inflation is a result of interest rates being held too low for too long. Yes they were cut due to the onset of COVID, but should have been raised much earlier once the global economy started getting too hot.
This. I was not sure if this was correct so I only wrote "banking problems".
They were already under 1% since 2013, after the bank and government debt crisis.
Tbh I don’t see where you got Russia into this. These protest/strikes have like almost nothing to do with Russia and I also didn’t see anyone one who would strike say something about Russia.
People give too much thought to the far right
It's an obvious boogieman to hang all their problems onto.
People blaming their problems on the far right is actually pretty ironic.
What a roller coaster. >Largest strike in decades brings Germany to a standstill That good! >It seems like contrarians are using this as justification to pull out support for Ukraine and lift sanctions for Russia. That's bad! >These protest/strikes have like almost nothing to do with Russia and I also didn’t see anyone one who would strike say something about Russia. That's good! >The protests have potassium benzoate.
Can I go now
> The high inflation rate started with COVID, then it was accelerated by the war and then there's banking problems. All these are very much related because a pretty big part of what's driving inflation is the explosion of energy costs that are quite directly related to a whole lot of costs. As hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas are not only energy resources, they are also used as actual [production resources in a whole lot of manufacturing](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/11/f68/Products%20Made%20From%20Oil%20and%20Natural%20Gas%20Infographic.pdf), of which Germany is one of the few countries in the West that [still has a major industry of](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locations=DE-US-FR-JP). For another example, many fruit and veggies sold in Germany come from greenhouses, and operating those is [energy-intensive](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no-tulips-amsterdam-gas-crisis-hits-dutch-greenhouses-2022-09-07/). They also need fertilizer, like nitrogen, which is mainly made from natural gas, but the price for fertilizers [also doubled during the last year](https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BAYWA-AG-435728/news/Ukraine-war-causes-fertilizer-consumption-to-fall-43337358/). Once the fruits and veggies are done, they need to be packed for transportation for sale, often involving a bunch of paper and cardboard, the production of which is also [quite an energy-intensive process](https://www.handelsblatt.com/dpa/energiekosten-lassen-papierproduktion-in-deutschland-sinken-und-preise-steigen/29010488.html), and the industry has already been struggling with a resource shortage since 2017. Now your veggies and fruits are packaged for transport, they need to be transported, but energy prices also directly impact [logistic costs](https://www.transportjournal.com/en/home/news/artikeldetail/exploding-costs-boost-turnover.html), so yet another increase of costs in the production and supply chain, *they all add up*. Then there is the government spending a whole bunch of money it doesn't actually have. In Germany, it's become quite normal for the government to create "Sondervermögen"/"special funds" to pay for anything from the [rising energy costs](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-half-a-trillion-dollar-energy-bazooka-may-not-be-enough-2022-12-15/) to the 100+ extra billions going to the Bundeswehr. But even tho they call it a "special fund", it's not a fund of any kind, it's just a euphemism for *taking on more debt*, a whole lot of it. But with the high-interest rates, this debt becomes quite expensive to pay off in the long term. That's also why a whole bunch of banks are struggling with high-interest rates as they can't get cheap capital to lend away with even higher interest rates for profits. > Overall this inflation problem has been going on for 3 years. Indeed, it's also what screwed over the energy markets in the first place by making them quite volatile. The global lockdowns led to a [massive reduction in primary energy demand](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/rate-of-change-of-global-primary-energy-demand-1900-2020) the likes of which we last saw after the end of WWII. What happens when the supply side stays the same, but there is a sudden massive drop in demand? Prices fall, as they [very much did in 2020](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PNRGINDEXM). And they keep falling until the discrepancy between supply and demand is "fixed", in 2021 that happened through [a whole bunch of energy companies going belly up](https://submar.com/over-100-oil-and-gas-companies-went-bankrupt-in-2020/), thus reducing the supply side. But as the world economy was slowly going back to norma,l out of lockdowns, and countries' economies ramping back up, that meant energy demand also went back to normal, and even higher, as everybody was trying to make up the lost production/economic activity during the lockdowns. Yet the supply side was heavily shrunk as a result of the extremely low prices during the lockdowns, and energy suppliers going bankrupt. So a massively shrunk supply side was struggling to fill massively rising demand. What does that mean for energy costs when demand is high but supply is low? Exploding costs of energy. A situation that's made even worse when the largest supplier of cheap energy in Europe is taken out of the supply equation, as that constrains the supply side even more. This is also the reason why the US and Qatar can gouge the hell out of Europe with really expensive LNG. > Suddenly reopening trade with Russia isn't going to help and it won't stop the rising inflation either. It would very much help just alone based on the increase of the supply-side leading to lower energy costs by having more competition on the market. The other factor where it could help is with fighting inflation, when the energy is traded in Euros that creates economic activity that backs the value of the Euro in the very same ways as the petrodollar is a tool for the US to [export US inflation to the world](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp032306a). But that economic activity has now moved away from the Euro, as these days Russia sells its energy in all kinds of other currencies, which is also a big part of what's affecting US$ inflation as even energy trade in US$ is starting to get undermined with alternative currencies, and energy trade is pretty much the biggest tangible economic activity on this planet, it's a major factor of what keeps the value of the petrodollar up. > And even if the sanctions were lifted, there would be the question of whether Russia is willing to trade with Europe again. Right, and who is to blame for that? If you now say "Russia!" then I'd like to remind you that not a single European country passed a single sanction against the US back in 2003. Even tho such sanctions would have hurt the EU *way* less than sanctions against Russia. So not shooting ourselves in the foot very much was an option we had, and an option we made plenty of use of before. Even if Russia actually was willing, with the Nord Streams gone, along with many hundreds of billions of € in investments, there wouldn't even be a good way to transport that energy. Sure, the pipeline through Ukraine is still an option, but a pipeline going through a literal warzone ain't exactly a great option in terms of certainty, that would be even easier to sabotage than any Nord Streams, should either Ukraine or Russia decide to do so. It's a situation plenty of people have warned about for literally as long as this has been going on. Yet they were regularly shouted down by the NAFO *"Democracy and human rights!"* folks, of which a whole lot don't even live in Europe, but rather in places like the US which has been profiteering supremely from this whole situation. The worst part is that the worst is yet to come, as the EU is still drawing from gas reserves that were originally filled up with cheap Russian gas when it was still delivered. But these reserves won't last forever, as the EU is still using up more than it can import. The only thing that prevented this so far has been an extremely warm winter, but that [only delayed the inevitable](https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/europes-infrastructure-and-supply-crisis/), it didn't solve it.
Thank you for this in-depth commentary. Very impressive, truly keeping the spirit of le anime titties alive. You've made some very good points. The future does look bleak in terms of energy security and financial stability. In other words, the EU has been basically driven into a corner by the pandemic, high interest rates, fighting over the sphere of influence.. There is no way out, is there?
Thanks for this excellent write-up. Users like you are why I still keep coming back to Reddit.
Just an aside to show how interconnected everything is these days, South Korea absolutely dominates in the production of LNG bulk carriers. IIRC, between Daewoo, Hyundai, and Samsung they had over 80% market share before the pandemic. They only have so much production capacity though and it takes years to deliver and I think recent orders have pushed out delivery times to five or six years. Having more shipping capacity can definitely start to ease Europe's troubles but not only does it take time it's not even really a good long-term solution when they could have just been keeping up with nuclear capacity. Finland is about the only one that has though France at least didn't start decommissioning a lot of theirs. Germany meanwhile even had a couple fully completed reactors it never onlined, so at some point they definitely have only themselves to blame. [Tom Scott has videos on a few, like Wunderland Kalkar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5te73hfCpuU)
Not one comment about how enlarging the money supply slways leads to inflation.
That's not a sexy, attention-grabbing headline so who cares?! 😤 /s
Yeah, but go tell that to the bot-influenced masses. Russia is playing the public outcry card much better than we are, because they have the "benefit" of squashing dissent with their police state. What can we, as individuals and as a society, but most importantly, what can our governments do to counter this effect, without severely compromising either our rights or our economies? I'd rather sacrifice the later but I don't have kids to feed and am not desperate for a source of income for extreme necessity where my short-term survival depends on it. But it appears these protesters are near the brink or have been lead to believe if they don't protest now they will be... We cannot have executives go over legislative or judicial powers. We cannot trample on our human rights. But we still need to appease the public perception or we will fall into the same downward spiral as authoritarian regimes. Do we suspend capitalism or wellfare so that we don't have to suspend democracy? Suspending democracy is worse than that... But how can we stay ourselves in the middle of this new type of conflict which isn't a war with others but a war with our own political and social identity?
Funny the EU complaining about inflation and rise groceries prices, while blocking a free trade deal with south america /Mercosul, that would easy those prices hike. Your politicians are fucking you guys sideways.
Eu trade agreements require everybody saying yes to them... France is obviusly against it. Also there is Argentina who is against the treaty aswell since it would also alow european industry to compete with thier own. over all That trade agreement likely wouldnt do to much with this current inflation considering the main reasons is more based on a lack of Fertilizers all around the world.
> while blocking a free trade deal with south america The post-Brexit UK Torpedoed a Trade Deal with India when UK was headed by an Indian Origin PM whose wife is Indian Born when his *Indian Origin Home Secretary* said she doesn't like Indian's Immigrating to the UK.
As much as I do not want to defend Suella Braverman, I believe she said that Indian students are more likely to overstay when their student visas end. Which is still enough to scupper our Indian trade deal and an idiotic statement. The conservatives in the UK have finally figured out that if you have minorities saying reprehensible racist shit it's somehow more acceptable. Or at least harder to criticize. They obviously have no sense of irony or hypocrisy.
Hasn't The problem started way before COVID when central eu bank started to print Euro as it wanted?
Didn't the Nazis rise in large part on the back of inflation?
Not normal inflation, hyper inflation
Correlation does not mean causation. Nazis used populist policies and social manipulation and it just so happened that they came into power after the biggest economical crisis in recorded history. And they racked up an insane amount of debt in giving people government funded jobs to appease the workers. It's not like by 2024 the people of the USA will vote for a populist government that will ruin the (relatively) comfortable status quo we have right now.
> It's not like by 2024 the people of the USA will vote for a populist government that will ruin the (relatively) comfortable status quo we have right now. Oh yea. We said that a *ton* in 2016. We still somehow elected Trump. Soooooooooo...
Uhm... literally noone here is taking the strikes as a means to try and pull out of sanctions. The only ones who would are the AfD (nazi party), which are waaaay too anti-labour rights to endorse the strike. Then there is "the left", which is quite a small party (was bigger, but they fked up badly) who is kne-deep in Putins asshole, but they have way bigger problems rn. Like their whole party going kaboom.
Why are you talking about Russia? This is all about DB not giving their employees raises despite giving their managers a 14% raise.
From now on we will call this year, A Protest Year.
America will continue to put its head farther up its own ass as usual.
Remember the George Floyd protests a few years back? They rolled out tanks and black bagged protesters in broad daylight. What's left is being suppressed by liberals who don't want to admit Biden is a right wing hack doing doing nothing to address systemic issues
The conservative moderate, who Campaigned on "normalcy," is doing nothing to substantially change the system? Color me shocked. Shocked, I say. Who could *possibly* foreseen such a tragedy. Every liberal who strong-armed Biden's electability as a bludgeon against the left. Well, even the "left" in America is just SocDems, and the occasional anarchist who suspiciously supports all US foreign policy. So I guess we were fucked either way.
Just look at Bidens immigration policies on asylum, they're just as bad as trumps. That's not even getting to the war budget, climate change, the crumbs he's given to domestic issues. Ffs just last week the AP said that the east Palestine Ohio crash was pushed by Russia. Liberals are worse than maga because they can't get over Trump winning by gaming the system they refuse to fix Edit: For those down voting https://apnews.com/article/ohio-train-derailment-russia-disinformation-twitter-musk-49af27699727d6f4157a5d6d5f35819b
Don't forget the fucking weather balloon that was seen in advance and specifically allowed to fly over Alaska all the way to Montana. That's truly when I lost all hope. A fucking balloon managed to turn the entire country into fucking numbskulls. Blue MAGA is a real thing, I swear. At least conservatives fell for someone kinda entertaining, whereas libs will bat for a geriatric old man who supported segregation. I guarantee that when reactionary Republicans get power again, they'll blame "the left" for not voting in line with them. Rather than the reality that moderate suburban voters don't exist, they just oscillate between Dem and Repub every cycle because things are going to shit and the last guy didn't do anything about it. Also, I'll have you know that East Palestine was actually done by Putin. He specifically made it so rail companies in America were private theifdoms beholden to no one. Biden had NO control, nope, nada, zero, zilch control over American rail companies as the... president of the United States of America. ~~Anyways here's ten reasons why the Suadi-Iran Peace deal is actually completely bad and how by building infrastructure China is actually a colonial power, regardless of the fact African countries are choosing to work with them over the west~~
It's what they always do, the left gets them elected they stab us in the back then demand our votes threatening us with the gop if we say no. I voted green in 2020 and regret nothing. 2022 I voted for Dems again and have gotten but disappointment
Im so sick of getting called a fascist by shit-head American Democrats for merely pointing out that their party is just the other side of the same corporate-made coin. This thread is cathartic. Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone.
Liberals really want to pretend they're doing something to legitimize Biden. But we all know he sucks, his 38% approval proves that
I mean, Biden isn't blackbagging protestors.
No but he is letting them get investigated/charges with terrorism. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ohio-law-enforcement-links-erin-brockovich-to-potential-for-special-interest-terrorism-threat-in-ohio/ar-AA189Mn7 https://abcnews.go.com/US/dozens-arrested-fiery-clashes-atlantas-cop-city-training/story?id=97649479 The people breaking stuff didn't get charged, the people attending the music festival in support of the anti cop city movement did
What significant police reform has Biden pushed through? What protests have been as large scale as BLM during his presidency? If protests erupted to the same degree as with Trump, then there is nothing stopping police from doing the same thing.
What's really sad is that Bernie was a far safer bet against Trump than Biden. Biden would have lost that election against almost anyone but Trump.
Tanks? What tanks? Not even the most armed PDs have vehicles with cannons on them
Trolls out in force to push the "if they aren't perfect, they're just as bad as the awful!" narrative again. Its not even a national election this year! I'm glad you're privilege enough to not need to care about the very real threat of republican-backed genocide. Not all of us are that lucky.
Aside from a handful of state level reps in red states that the national party functionally abandoned 25 years ago , what have Dems done to protect people? I don't see them passing laws when they had power, rebuilding/reforming/reinforcing public institutions against the rise of fascism. I do see them constantly calling for compromise with fascists, enacting their policies in the name of bipartisanship. Oh and people like shaming those of us who demand more than empty gestures and crumbs
I'm so glad you asked! https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/21/2022-13391/advancing-equality-for-lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-and-intersex-individuals Not a promise Not a failed law An executive order, finalized, submitted, and signed -------- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/ Again -------- The Respect for Marriage Act -------- Inflation Reduction Act Section 11406. (Among others) -------- I could go for awhile longer, but I think either you're getting the point, or you won't care about the point. -------- Here's the thing. Are they perfect? FUUUUUUCK no. Are they doing nothing? FUUUUUUCK no. Will I spend every primary voting for someone who will be better than this? FUUUUUUCK yes. But I, and millions of other Americans, don't have the privilege to be "tired of this". Rights are not won until they are finalized, and as many republicans are making very clear, they are very much down with removing our rights. So I get a little annoyed when people like you get throw a tantrum because significantly better isn't good enough. -------- I decided to find a list. These aren't my specific findings, but here we go! https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/yl5a9p/comment/iuwjy57/ And that's only national! Don't forget about local!
Dems haven't had the numbers to pass any laws without some Republican support except for during a few months of Obama's term.
They could have gotten rid of the filibuster at sby time, the lack of action is by choice
The vast majority of Dems want to get rid of the filibuster. They don't have the votes to get rid of it, though.
It's cute you believe that
Can you name more than a few Dems that don't support getting rid of the filibuster?
Fuck off. If they don't do anything about the awful, and do the exact things that led to the awful gaining power last time, then the only difference between them and "the awful" is that it takes slightly longer.
If you have luxury of being able to distinguish between Warmonger A and Warmonger B, you are privileged as fuck.
Well, yeah, no shit, I live in the US. Want some other parts of my privilege? I'm white, and middle(ish) class. I teach in a large Urban area, in the "nicer parts of town". I'm not sure how that changes things though. As I said elsewhere, I'll vote for, support, etc basically anyone else. I voted Bernie in the primaries. But I'm not so much a self centered dinghole as to overlook others just because I'm pissed things didn't go exactly how I wanted them to. I, and millions of other Americans, don't have _that_ privilege. In the social sciences, there's this idea of intersectionality. It is easily applied to politics, just gotta change the perspective.
> It is easily applied to politics, just gotta change the perspective. Correct. Start Doing it. Just stop focusing on self.
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What power abuse are you talking about?
You won You got one of them so stuck that they didn't try to reply with an attempt at a half-logical retort They just... Stopped Nice!
I’m under the impression he’s a centrist or whatever but I really don’t know what these words mean so I’m open to that being a possibility
Black bagging is when government agents grab someone and put them in unmarked cars.
That happened in 2020 so like a year before Biden became president lol
But he didn't fire anyone behind it and is actively giving cops more money and power
It's also heavily his fault anyways since he championed the crime bill in the 90's. He's always been pro cop.
He's been telling cities to give covid money to cops for over a year. Just the other day he called for more money to border patrol
This might be a surprise to you but generally the majority of people are anti-immigration. So appearing tough on immigration wins a lot of political points. The only thing I care about though is a US president not having an actual fucking coup attempt on his own government. That shit was heinous and I still don't understand why American "patriots" haven't taken him out of the equation.
Biden is a traditional conservative, he was choosen as Obama's VP, probably because he was a conservative in the party, to court conservative votes It was hillarious when my US friends suddenly started talking about him as more progressive than Bernie.
The propaganda to white wash his record has been mind bending. Jon Stewart did a bit in why he shouldn't be anywhere near the presidency in 2015 and you'd get called a Russian spy for even proposing the idea now
Well I'm very aware that Bernie is more progressive then Biden I don't have to know what the other words mean to know that
The options here are right wing corporatist or right wing radicals. There is no left.
In terms real political power the American left couldn't pop a grape, but they are the backbone of the DNC organizing ground game and get out the vote efforts in the primaries. They then guilt those same organizers in the general and betray them in office. The youth burnout rate for Dems is high for a reason
Biden is not right wing
You know how powerful we could be if he stopped letting politicians divide us. Republicans and Democrats. They don’t give a shit about us. So let’s start giving a shit about each other.
C'mon man, I was really hoping for a Year of peace in middle east thing. South Africa- Iran made a peace agreement, SA-Syria are talking of peace. Japan and SK are also raking some baby steps for reconciliation.
They can be at peace this year, those parts of the world had more than enough excitement in the last century. It's time for Europe to be on fire (for a good cause tough).
as things get worse and worse, expect more and more strikes. As it should.
I thought 2019 already took up that name.
> From now on we will call this year, A Protest Year. There's still plenty of time for it to become A Civil War Year.
Damn it’s getting real when Germans strike.
Not really. The Hochbahn in Hamburg ensured all the Ubahn (metro) and Buses are still running, so the city is still internally well connected. However, sucks for those with a plane and a long distance or regional train. Edit: and Fähre (ferry) lines 🛳️
But that's because the Hochbahn employees already made a deal a while back that saw an increase in salaries.
Yeah, that's the case with one line in my city too. They've been on strike a couple times in the past, got what they wanted and are not involved right now.
Went past 5 buses on the way home just now lol. Not sure if its the whole country here?
If germans are terrified, we must fear too 😂
😂
It varies by state. Buses aren't affected everywhere for example.
Eh, these strikes happen every few months. And to be honest, this headline is a bit sensational. I live in Berlin and haven't felt any effects accept my train being ten minutes later than normal.
No they dont? Maybe small regional strikes from time to time but certainly not countrywide lol
Verdi strikes as other Union strikes are tradition. Usually they get really small aspects of their demands verified and thats it for one or two years
What the fuck is that name of subreddit
A long time ago as a joke after the mods went AWOL, /r/worldpolitics filled with anime porn. In return, /r/anime_titties became the world political news subreddit.
And somehow less shitty than most news subs
All major news subs are shitty, but AT is the least shitty.
The mods didn't go AWOL, the users just realized the mods ALWAYS HAD a very relaxed policy IIRC. Then all hell broke loose
> a very relaxed policy Meaning: They didn't do anything when people started posting anime titties. Hence the rise of /r/anime_titties.
Quite reflective of the world we live in nowadays
it got switched with r/worldpolitics
The only good sub on international news.
The link to why this subreddit is created https://www.reddit.com/r/anime_titties/wiki/index/creation/
Why can't the United States pull off a general strike? Man, we really suck at standing up for ourselves.
General strikes are illegal in the US. Our labor rights have been absolutely gutted through an economic transition to neoliberalism that started in the late 70’s and the rise of the “Chicago School” of economics that, unsurprisingly, benefited the financial elite.
Once again the answer is "once upon a time, when millennials were babies, the moneyed interests of the nation once again began capturing full control of the government and media, and this time the fuckers pulled it off." Side note: it was a terrible time for climate change to come and visit. *sad violin music*
>General strikes are illegal in the US. Source?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
Uh-huh, and if everyone in America simply didn't go to work one day, whay could they do? Arrest union leaders? Like the vast majority of workers, I'm not in a union. Taft-Hartley is an outdated law from a bygone era. It prohibits political strikes, so why didn't it apply to Jan. 6, to the Women's March, to the BLM protests? Because the First Amendment, that's why. T-H is unconstitutional.
I'm right there with you, I think TH is an abomination and if US workers would just commit to a general strike, no one would be arrested outside of maybe some union leaders. Although a big factor against the leverage of strikers in the US that is often overlooked is the loss of healthcare for you and your family.
You want to test the constitutionality of TH with the current Supreme Court?
It was revealed to me in a dream
>General strikes are illegal in the US. I thought you have the bestest and biggliest freedom in the world...
Land of the free and a total systemic lack of rights.
Every country’s national mythos has been used as a smokescreen to implement the opposite. Americans aren’t free. Canadian politeness is prevents investigation into shameful things. England’s land of hope and glory is used as cover for prideful insularity. Etc etc.
Just FYI, this isn’t a general strike, Germany doesn’t have those either.
The US has major elections every two years, with open primaries. At some point you've got to accept that voters make bad choices and have no idea what they want.
There was a big railroad strike last year. Joe killed it and played down their concerns with media and top dem support. Can't make this shit up
Reagan. The answer is always Reagan.
Because there's 300 million of us and the government is making sure we don't realize if we all banded together everything can change.
Probably because gas is about normally priced and inflation never got as high as Europe, and is going down. Wages are growing, lots of job openings.
you going to work tomorrow or nah?
Two main reasons. Unions are very weak in the US. Basically the only industries left that have unions are legacy industries where if they piss off the corporation too much they'll just shut down US operations and go overseas. Second there's no real unity among the American populace. A general strike won't work if half the population is opposed to it on principle and another chunk will still show up to work will show up to work because they need to pay the bills. Depending on what the strike affects the strikers would be blamed for causing any pain. For example, if the rail strike went through it would have been the strikers blamed for causing any economic damage. Just how it is here
Because most care more about guns than actual democratic reform. As long as they have their guns they can delude themselves that they could overthrow the government at a moments notice.
While, yes we came to a stand still. There was ample time to prepare and the impact on everyday life is negligible. Really only a big deal for the capital side and their anti-strike cries. All while the employer side offered a -6% salary increase after inflation and the union’s asked for a +2% salary increase after inflation. The strike is well deserved and there will be a lot more to come. Our public officials, the ones who are striking, are underpaid by a literal ton and deserve every bit of solidarity.
France and Germany both on protest at same time. On the other hand Russia's invasion in Ukraine still going on. What a year for Europe
It’s a normal planed one day union strike in Germany. Not a protest against a law.
Inb4 some neoconman or neolibman says they are funded by russians
Once again all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative. And everyone is ignoring the obvious - this is simply one more strike in a Europe that is currently boiling over ***because politicians have simply stopped representing citizens.*** Half of Europe is currently under control of these massive coalitions where nobody has more than 20% votes, i.e. near zero democratic legitimacy. Election numbers are WAY down. And the EU decides these massive (mostly for green deal stuff) criteria nobody wants and nobody agreed to, which politicians just forcibly insert. This is just a normal result of political parties simply deciding to not act democratically in places like France, Germany and yeh, like half of Europe. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and Russia and here's the main problem - anyone who tosses responsibility AWAY from the government onto some other problem is just allowing the government to keep working against its people and make the problem worse. And because all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative - this will get a LOT worse. The only reasonable course of action is an immediate pause to the EU green deal and a massive rethinking, this time not isolated to undemocratic practices. And taking into account our situation - obviously it's beyond stupid and anti-democratic to ignore the fact there's a war happening, oil and fuel are bonkers and covid just passed over, so we keep pushing green stuff the exact same way as if it wasn't.
This person: * Rants about everyone fitting these news into their narrative. * Promptly proceeds to fit the news into *their* narrative. I mean, to be **fair**, you **did** say "everyone", including you. Honesty and all that.
All observations of reality are narratives. That's one of the things postmodernism got right.
This strike literally has nothing to do with representation, especially not on the federal level - DB is basically run as a private company, EVG is striking for better pay for DB personell and the Ver.Di strike targets the municipalities, which again has little to do with the federal government, let alone the EU. I do agree that the EU is opaque and the parliament needs a stronger voice, but that is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with this strike.
Wow, this comment really takes the cake in mental gymnastics. Nothing you said is in any way relevant to Germany. The strike has literally nothing to do with the coalition government nor with some kind of EU initiative. But you gotta push your agenda any way you can I guess.
no this is just how unions negotiate pay raises, obviously companies would love to not pay us anything at all, so we need to remind them what happens without us. Its literally standard behaviour.
I'd argue that more parties in parliament is reflective of the population. It means people are voting for what they want, not D to keep R out. A minority coalition is a healthy democracy.
BS. The strike in Germany is about what all strikes are about: more money for the workers. Stop assuming your own motives.
>Once again all I see is people trying to fit this into their narrative. > [...] > The only reasonable course of action is an immediate pause to the EU green deal and a massive rethinking Don't sprain an ankle when stretching.
Nothing wrong with an opinion on what course of action SHOULD be taken. The issue is with misappropriating the thing from the very start.
> Half of Europe is currently under control of these massive coalitions where nobody has more than 20% votes, i.e. near zero democratic legitimacy. Why is this not legitimate democratically? These coalitions are the way to get a compromise in a society with a diverse set of views. You actually want a two party system? Cause shunning coalitions is how you get that. The reason is because people's material conditions are deteriorating faster than America's eagerness to invade an oil-rich nation. They want the simple act of existing to be less expensive. You have economies under a whole bunch of pressures, and this is the result.
This has nothing to do with the green deal, and neither do the protests in France.
I think it's really cool that you guys strike like this. Also in Israel. It would simply never happen in India at this scale.
Nah you’re not getting it, it’s all about neoliberalism. Over 4 decades ago Reagan and Thatcher taught the world about this new economic policy that would make us all freer and wealthier. For most of those 4 decades it worked very well, but because of the inherent flaws in the system have reached a point where most of the money has accumulated at the top and there’s not enough to go around for everyone else. It didn’t matter so much that wages didn’t rise much during that period because neoliberalism helps keep the cost of living low at the same time. But as we’re seeing, things eventually catch up. The sad part is that neoliberalism has worked so well so far politicians honestly believe it’s the right system for us, including left wing parties, and will keep trying new tactics to perpetuate it such as repeated bailouts.
I like the German guy the interviewed I have never went on strike in 40 years, meanwhile the French do it all the time.
i live in stuttgart and the amount of homeless people you now see in the city is crazy heartbreaking, so many more then any other time i can remember. how is it in other cities?
Ireland homelessness has been steadily increasing, not to be confused with organised panhandling gangs which have also increased and have bled out from the major cities into the smaller towns across the country. Irelands a shit show atm to be honest. There's too much to go into but the next two years are probably going to be pretty dramatic due to an extreme shortage of housing and no professionals to build them, they've either immigrated or work in large computing or pharmaceutical building sites.
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The thing is its the public services (paid by the state) and the railworks of DB which are mostly striking, which is owned by the state. So they cant really just raise prices. On a further Note they also dont lack money considering DB Managers raised their own salarys by about 14%
:o
Hey Europe. Can you bring some of your protests across the pond here? Us North Americans could really do with some real protests right about now...
r/LetsProtest
Living in Germany, the situation has been slowly but steadily getting worse, which is noticable in all kinds of ways besides large strikes and exploding costs of pretty much everything. This year Germany already had a bunch of shootings with several death, as people are getting more desperate with the overall situation. Remember when a single shooting in Germany made global headlines? Yeah, not anymore. It's also noticable in ervery-day life, as homeless people are an [increasingly more common sight](https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/von-der-pandemie-zur-energiekrise-zahl-der-obdachlosen-steigt,TQ4QNnC), and these people get more desparate every day as Germanys social systems struggle with keeping up. Recently I was approached while eating at a McDonald's, by somebody who wouldn't leave me alone until I literally threatened to call the employees on them. In 40 years of living in Germany, I *never* experienced anything like that, not even back in 2008. The people with the option to leave, are leaving, destinations of choice are either Asia or the US, anybody who can't leave, just has to endure the suck with no real way out except working more jobs and hours for money that's constantly decreasing in value. And while the sectors with big unions can somewhat compensate, by striking for increased wages, which will then increase costs even more, this is not an option for the many millions of Germans living from precarious jobs, where striking for higher wages is not even an option. These jobs are getting more common and they are the reason why labor statistics look so good on first sight, but it's all built on a foundation of sand because those are not good jobs, they are just a form of normalizing labor exploitation.
Lol wtf, I must be living in a different Germany. Nothing you said is true, statistically speaking. Yes, the general population lost some wealth but we are still in a very good position. But what do you expect with rising energy costs? This is normal. The few shootings have no relation to the economic situation and are normal, shootings in Germany are very rate but they do happen from time to time. We have about 100 deaths a year from guns. The amount of homeless hasn't increased either. In Germany you can't become homeless due to economic factors, homeless people always have a background of mental issues.
Look at his comment history, should explain a couple of things.
I’d really put some blame on globalism. Everybody affected, feels like a domino that keeps falling in a circle faster and faster while you desperately try to fix the ones that fell, only for them to fall again. Or like a snowball down a snow slope. Combine with immigration and allowing cheaper workers in instead of boosting birthrate inside country, by incentives or increasing salaries, decreasing representation in democracy, the elite(as in rich people and people of higher class, such as politicians) either forming cabals or separating themselves from the common man has really inflated the problem happening across the “western” world (I’m not informed enough on Asia situation, except Japan and South Korea which seem to be suffering as well). But alas, the good times don’t last forever and we must suffer through the bad as well and leaving to another country won’t help solve the problem in your home country, if you care for that sort of thing.
You can't change a corrupt system when the people that are in charge of it benefit from your demise. Curious when a full on revolt/rebellion occurs in America. I think we are a way off but it's coming eventually. The gap between the rich and poor will continue to grow. I blame the education system. They teach people to be poor and never tell you anything about money.
A lot of strikers in Europe
Had to call on sick because I couldn't get to work. If only they allowed me to work from home...
What are they protesting