5 ms·

What is this magical role that Germany supposedly has in the ECB? Name the struggling country that was supposedly put in a debt agreement. Is this Greece? Did

by quonn 4y ago

What is this magical role that Germany supposedly has in the ECB? Name the struggling country that was supposedly put in a debt agreement. Is this Greece? Did Greece not _choose_ in a popular vote to remain in the Eurozone? Did they not enter the Eurozone by using fraudulent accounting in the first place? Let us know what Germany then supposedly did exactly during that crisis. Regarding coal your argument makes zero sense. Either nuclear is cheaper and could cover all needs, then it doesn't matter how much coal there is, it could be left alone. Or it isn't, then there is no need to shut down nuclear to expand coal. In reality German coal mining has not been economical for decades and has been heavily subsidised to safe some jobs. The German policy is to change everything to renewables and to phase out coal until 2030.

elif 4y ago
The magical role is that they conveniently provided the ECB, an institution that exists on German soil, with such "independence" that when a real crisis was presented, they were stripped of any actual decision making power and instead the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_(European_group) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_(European_group) was formed to implement the largest scale changes. The troika, of course being also conveniently headed by the German chancellor, or "the de facto leader of the European Union (EU)" as her Wikipedia page explains in its introductory description.
- quonn 4y ago
  > an institution that exists on German soil This is like saying the EU parliament conveniently is located in Belgium and therefore Belgium controls it. "The ECB is directly governed by European Union law. Its capital stock, worth €11 billion, is owned by all 27 central banks of the EU member states as shareholders." [0] [0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/orga/capital/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/orga/capital/html/index.en.htm... The ECB was not strapped of any power, but as a central bank it cannot by itself bailout countries. The Troika was formed to perform this bailout. I'm not disputing that Germany wields considerable soft power in Europe due to the size of it's economy, but the EU is set up in a way that Germany is a member like the others. More information here: https://time.com/3980384/germany-europe-greece-crisis/ https://time.com/3980384/germany-europe-greece-crisis/ "German taxpayers invested for decades in the development of peripheral European Union members, spent trillions to develop Eastern Germany, and will now pay a good chunk of a third Greek bailout that will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion."
  - elif 4y ago
    Sorry I'm not going into tangents of tangents while you downvote me for having a different opinion. This topic is about coal in Germany, not about the EU parliament in Belgium. I recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission as reading if you truly believe I'm talking about "soft power" from "large economy size"
    - quonn 4y ago
      What you call an "opinion" is baselessly blaming Germany for the debt crisis of Greece. The topic is not coal, the topic is nuclear. You suddenly started talking about coal, claiming that Germany wants to reduce its own nuclear power plants in order to use more of its own coal. Makes zero sense since the nuclear plants were inside the country, not outside so it doesn't make sense to pretend that Germany is pushing its own product at the expense of someone else. And it is factually wrong, since Germany is also moving aways from coals until 2030. I'm not downvoting you because I can't even do this, since HN does not permit to downvote replies. But if I could I would have done so since you make wild claims without providing even a shred of evidence or a source.
      - elif 4y ago
        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-returns-to-coal-as-energy-security-trumps-climate-goals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-r...
      - elif 4y ago
        what changed since Germany extended the life of the reactors to meet their 2030 aspirations, to when they decided to decommission them in spite of their aspirations, in one graphic: https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b83e3b9306591c84f.html https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b...
        quonn 4y ago
        I don't know what you want to say with this graphic. The only thing I can clearly see in this plot is the Invasion of Ukraine by Russia. No matter what you want to say, it makes no sense, since both the nuclear plants and the coal plants are owned by German companies. It simply doesn't make sense to argue that Germany is trying to unfairly get an advantage by shutting down one type of it's plants to benefit the other type.

by quonn 4y ago

elif 4y ago

The magical role is that they conveniently provided the ECB, an institution that exists on German soil, with such "independence" that when a real crisis was presented, they were stripped of any actual decision making power and instead the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_(European_group) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_(European_group) was formed to implement the largest scale changes. The troika, of course being also conveniently headed by the German chancellor, or "the de facto leader of the European Union (EU)" as her Wikipedia page explains in its introductory description.

quonn 4y ago
> an institution that exists on German soil This is like saying the EU parliament conveniently is located in Belgium and therefore Belgium controls it. "The ECB is directly governed by European Union law. Its capital stock, worth €11 billion, is owned by all 27 central banks of the EU member states as shareholders." [0] [0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/orga/capital/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/orga/capital/html/index.en.htm... The ECB was not strapped of any power, but as a central bank it cannot by itself bailout countries. The Troika was formed to perform this bailout. I'm not disputing that Germany wields considerable soft power in Europe due to the size of it's economy, but the EU is set up in a way that Germany is a member like the others. More information here: https://time.com/3980384/germany-europe-greece-crisis/ https://time.com/3980384/germany-europe-greece-crisis/ "German taxpayers invested for decades in the development of peripheral European Union members, spent trillions to develop Eastern Germany, and will now pay a good chunk of a third Greek bailout that will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion."
- elif 4y ago
  Sorry I'm not going into tangents of tangents while you downvote me for having a different opinion. This topic is about coal in Germany, not about the EU parliament in Belgium. I recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission as reading if you truly believe I'm talking about "soft power" from "large economy size"
  - quonn 4y ago
    What you call an "opinion" is baselessly blaming Germany for the debt crisis of Greece. The topic is not coal, the topic is nuclear. You suddenly started talking about coal, claiming that Germany wants to reduce its own nuclear power plants in order to use more of its own coal. Makes zero sense since the nuclear plants were inside the country, not outside so it doesn't make sense to pretend that Germany is pushing its own product at the expense of someone else. And it is factually wrong, since Germany is also moving aways from coals until 2030. I'm not downvoting you because I can't even do this, since HN does not permit to downvote replies. But if I could I would have done so since you make wild claims without providing even a shred of evidence or a source.
    - elif 4y ago
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-returns-to-coal-as-energy-security-trumps-climate-goals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-r...
    - elif 4y ago
      what changed since Germany extended the life of the reactors to meet their 2030 aspirations, to when they decided to decommission them in spite of their aspirations, in one graphic: https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b83e3b9306591c84f.html https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b...
      - quonn 4y ago
        I don't know what you want to say with this graphic. The only thing I can clearly see in this plot is the Invasion of Ukraine by Russia. No matter what you want to say, it makes no sense, since both the nuclear plants and the coal plants are owned by German companies. It simply doesn't make sense to argue that Germany is trying to unfairly get an advantage by shutting down one type of it's plants to benefit the other type.