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> in an objective non political way While your whole post implicates that you are leaning to the conservatice spectrum, I will try to be as objective as possib

> in an objective non political way While your whole post implicates that you are leaning to the conservatice spectrum, I will try to be as objective as possible. Germany has been ruled by conservative governments for the last 16 years. These governments have hindered innovation (see German internet speeds for example) and lobbyists made sure that nothing changed in regards of mobility, energy, city building and whatnot. The russian attack on Ukraine has made clear that dependency on foreign states is not a good idea and that we have to act on that swiftly. Acting swiftly comes with a cost for the moment for sure. Energy prices are already falling though for example, renewables are being build, probably like never before, see [1] at the bottom, and dependency on fossil fuels is being reduced steadily. That could have been done slowly over the last 16 years, but conservatice politicians were busy doing... I don't know what. Nuclear is and was never a viable option. While fans of this technology are repeating it over and over, the German reactors were EOL. Also: The energy companies were only able to run those reactors because that has been subsidized in different ways. The economic downturn is somewhat more complicated, I think. Lots of companies have used the pandemic to rise prices. While that might have been a real issue due to logistics during the pandemic, right now it's only greedflation with companies rising prices "because they can". That hits companies as well as persons and leads to people being more frugal and results in the economic downturn. The "downturn" also might be a more realistic view of the situation, as the current government is not that leaned towards pampering businesses and lobbyists as the former ones. Former growth is in parts the result of subsidizing, tax reductions, low interest rates etc. These are all valid measurements to boost an economy, but someone has to pay the price for that. Now, there's also a price to pay for modernizing the country at a larger scale and businesses have to pay their share, too. I think that's only fair. [1]: https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/erneuerbare-energien.html https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/erneuerbare-energie...

snowpid 3y ago
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- martin_a 3y ago
  Be respectful and talk English. And do you think it's unobjective to think that the conservative governements of the past have missed to lay the foundations? We're sitting on our slow copper cable internet, due to Helmut fucking Kohl in the late 80s. Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly. Instead the Deutsche Post was privatized and now the Telekom has obviously no incentive to lay fiber for fast internet, especially in the rural areas, when they can milk their customers on the copper cables. And that's just one example of how past governments have failed the people. On the other hand it's just funny _how much_ the new government is said to have run this country against the wall after taking over. I'd love if they had done that much at all.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    "Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly." Isn't that actually a very bad result across the board? Except the far right, every single national party has been in German government since the 1980s. No one can dodge responsibility.
    - martin_a 3y ago
      Absolutely, yes. One could discuss if 7 years of SPD/Grüne with Schröder was enough for significant change (well, we did Hartz in that time, so something was done...) after and before 15/16 years CDU-led governments, but that's nitpicking. But what is to be said is that the current government did not "ruin" the country. That has been started decades earlier and we are only now seeing the full extend of lack of innovation and modernization.
  - pelasaco 3y ago
    > We're sitting on our slow copper cable internet, due to Helmut fucking Kohl in the late 80s. Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly. ... > Instead the Deutsche Post was privatized and now the Telekom has obviously no incentive to lay fiber for fast internet, especially in the rural areas, when they can milk their customers on the copper cables. I live in a rural area and have Fiber glass, thanks the private competition. I guess you live in a big city, where is hard to roll-out such infrastructure in the necessary speed.
pelasaco 3y ago
> Germany has been ruled by conservative governments for the last 16 years. Olaf Scholz was vice prime minister, and finance minister in the last governments. So I guess he was as responsible for the last 16 years as Lindner is today?
- martin_a 3y ago
  You forgot to mention that he can't remember details about one of the biggest tax frauds in German history. Personally I don't think that he should be chancellor at all, but I guess we don't have many choices.
kgabis 3y ago
> Nuclear is and was never a viable option. While fans of this technology are repeating it over and over, the German reactors were EOL. Also: The energy companies were only able to run those reactors because that has been subsidized in different ways. This is simply not true, German reactors were perfectly fine and could've continue operating for decades to come, shutting them down so early was a political decision. Currently Germany got rid of their cleanest source of electricity while still depending on fossil fuels. At some point it will become obvious that renewables are not enough not power a modern economy and Germany will either stick to gas or become dependent on it's neighbours to stabilise it's energy grid.
- martin_a 3y ago
  Nuclear energy made up only 6% of the total energy mix. I wonder why everyone is so obsessed with these 6%. Also please tell me, how, starting from tomorrow, we can ensure that we handle the waste products of nuclear power generation safely and easily. Please don't come up with things "there are some reactors which can burn it". We don't have these reactors yet. They are in development, maybe there's a prototype somewhere, but nothing we can use. We need solutions that work right out of the box and right now. If not, we have to store the waste for a looooooooooong time and who pays for that? The tax payers. For a long time, maybe hundreds if not thousands of years ongoing from now, who knows. Please note that the 22 billion Euro from the energy providers are just for searching a place to store the waste, not the actual storage itself. edit: Just to note it, because some people might not know this. The decision to phase out the nuclear reactors was made by Merkel and made into law by her government. It's not something the Green party came up with one morning in 2022.
  - kgabis 3y ago
    Nuclear was responsible for 30% of electricity generation in 1990, a bit more than 6%. And yes, you just store the waste in geologically stable rocks, it's not rocket science, we store other types of radioactive or toxic waste and it's not that controversial. I wouldn't mind having one nearby... oh wait, there is one nearby, and literally nobody cares. It's this radiophobic fearmongering that made nuclear overly regulated and unnecessarily expensive. We have a planet to save yet the biggest economy in the EU is barely making a dent in it's CO2 emissions.

snowpid 3y ago

[flagged]

martin_a 3y ago
Be respectful and talk English. And do you think it's unobjective to think that the conservative governements of the past have missed to lay the foundations? We're sitting on our slow copper cable internet, due to Helmut fucking Kohl in the late 80s. Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly. Instead the Deutsche Post was privatized and now the Telekom has obviously no incentive to lay fiber for fast internet, especially in the rural areas, when they can milk their customers on the copper cables. And that's just one example of how past governments have failed the people. On the other hand it's just funny _how much_ the new government is said to have run this country against the wall after taking over. I'd love if they had done that much at all.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly." Isn't that actually a very bad result across the board? Except the far right, every single national party has been in German government since the 1980s. No one can dodge responsibility.
  - martin_a 3y ago
    Absolutely, yes. One could discuss if 7 years of SPD/Grüne with Schröder was enough for significant change (well, we did Hartz in that time, so something was done...) after and before 15/16 years CDU-led governments, but that's nitpicking. But what is to be said is that the current government did not "ruin" the country. That has been started decades earlier and we are only now seeing the full extend of lack of innovation and modernization.
- pelasaco 3y ago
  > We're sitting on our slow copper cable internet, due to Helmut fucking Kohl in the late 80s. Since then nobody has made any effort to improve the infrastructure significantly. ... > Instead the Deutsche Post was privatized and now the Telekom has obviously no incentive to lay fiber for fast internet, especially in the rural areas, when they can milk their customers on the copper cables. I live in a rural area and have Fiber glass, thanks the private competition. I guess you live in a big city, where is hard to roll-out such infrastructure in the necessary speed.

pelasaco 3y ago

> Germany has been ruled by conservative governments for the last 16 years. Olaf Scholz was vice prime minister, and finance minister in the last governments. So I guess he was as responsible for the last 16 years as Lindner is today?

martin_a 3y ago
You forgot to mention that he can't remember details about one of the biggest tax frauds in German history. Personally I don't think that he should be chancellor at all, but I guess we don't have many choices.

kgabis 3y ago

> Nuclear is and was never a viable option. While fans of this technology are repeating it over and over, the German reactors were EOL. Also: The energy companies were only able to run those reactors because that has been subsidized in different ways. This is simply not true, German reactors were perfectly fine and could've continue operating for decades to come, shutting them down so early was a political decision. Currently Germany got rid of their cleanest source of electricity while still depending on fossil fuels. At some point it will become obvious that renewables are not enough not power a modern economy and Germany will either stick to gas or become dependent on it's neighbours to stabilise it's energy grid.

martin_a 3y ago
Nuclear energy made up only 6% of the total energy mix. I wonder why everyone is so obsessed with these 6%. Also please tell me, how, starting from tomorrow, we can ensure that we handle the waste products of nuclear power generation safely and easily. Please don't come up with things "there are some reactors which can burn it". We don't have these reactors yet. They are in development, maybe there's a prototype somewhere, but nothing we can use. We need solutions that work right out of the box and right now. If not, we have to store the waste for a looooooooooong time and who pays for that? The tax payers. For a long time, maybe hundreds if not thousands of years ongoing from now, who knows. Please note that the 22 billion Euro from the energy providers are just for searching a place to store the waste, not the actual storage itself. edit: Just to note it, because some people might not know this. The decision to phase out the nuclear reactors was made by Merkel and made into law by her government. It's not something the Green party came up with one morning in 2022.
- kgabis 3y ago
  Nuclear was responsible for 30% of electricity generation in 1990, a bit more than 6%. And yes, you just store the waste in geologically stable rocks, it's not rocket science, we store other types of radioactive or toxic waste and it's not that controversial. I wouldn't mind having one nearby... oh wait, there is one nearby, and literally nobody cares. It's this radiophobic fearmongering that made nuclear overly regulated and unnecessarily expensive. We have a planet to save yet the biggest economy in the EU is barely making a dent in it's CO2 emissions.