6 ms·

Isn't that most of EU politics? Getting Germany to go along with what they want?

mrweasel 3y ago
It does tend to help. I read somewhere that "Germany is financing the EU, but Bavaria is financing Germany", that probably not entirely true, but it is fun to think about.
- lnsru 3y ago
  I am in Munich right now. Bavaria should start doing something about this. Snow from Friday is still not taken care of. Public transportation still does not work. Pathetic.
  - piva00 3y ago
    A friend of mine was supposed to move from Berlin to München for a job during last Saturday. He can't, trains were fucked, airport was closed, flight canceled and you can't trust DB during the best of days and weather, no way to be sure you will get there unless you have a car. Seems to be a complete clusterfuck, as someone living in the Nordics it's pretty funny to think that a bit of snow can simply grind to a halt the richest area of Germany.
    - croes 3y ago
      Because most employees cannot participate in wealth.
    - fl7305 3y ago
      Southern Sweden with 80% of the Swedish population rarely sees much snow. A few centimeters can cause big problems there too.
      - patall 3y ago
        Exactly. Stockholm experienced 10cm of snow last week and now ~-15°C (well, -20 in Uppsala) and the trains are in total chaos
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        News flash. Stockholm is not in southern sweden. Also Stockholm subway is famous for breaking down even if a single leave fall on the tracks.
        patall 3y ago
        > Southern Sweden with 80% of the Swedish population > Stockholm is not in southern sweden Are you sure this the level of comments you are supposed to post here?
        fl7305 3y ago
        Dang it, I got nerdsniped (https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/). With the help of ChatGPT, I crossreferenced two lists of all municipalities (kommuner) in Sweden to place them in an increasing latitude order (south->north), and calculated where the 80% population threshold lies. The answer is Västerås, which is a bit north of Stockholm. It is only 31.7% of the distance to the northernmost point in Sweden. So 80% of Sweden's population lives in the southernmost 32% of the country. This might not be called "Sydsverige" in Swedish, but describing it to a foreigner I think 32% qualifies as "Southern Sweden".
        pastage 3y ago
        I will resist this nerdsnipe. I know there is a population density map as well I think the 250m squares is freely available. So we could make a slider from Ystad to Treriksröset from 0% to 100% would make a good progress bar.
        3y ago
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      TBF the last time that part of Germany had that much snow in such a short time so early was about twenty years ago. Those parts of Germany where snow is more common (mainly in the mountains) saw no or little disruptions.
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      > Nordics it's pretty funny to think that a bit of snow can simply grind to a halt the richest area of Germany. Yeaaah about that, Denmark is currently covered in snow and the country isn't equipped to deal with it at all. As soon as the snow starts falling busses and trains are cancelled, people realize that maybe winter tires aren't such a bad idea, roads aren't cleared because the cities don't actually have the budgets to deal with it. So you can't rely on public transport, but driving can be dangerous because many roads aren't kept clear and other people are idiots, driving around on summer tires (that includes busses and trucks).
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >people realize that maybe winter tires aren't such a bad idea Hold the phone. Are you telling me winter tires are not mandatory by law in Denmark in winter?!
        mrweasel 3y ago
        They are not, surprisingly. I guess the reasoning is that during a normal winter they are required for maybe a few weeks. Many won't switch because they either don't want to pay for a second set of tires, or because it hurt fuel economy for most of the winter. All year tires are also somewhat popular, but they don't work as well in snow. You could probably get a fine for driving without them if the weather makes it unsafe, but that would be because you're not driving according to conditions. Anyway, loads of people are driving around on summer tires during the winter and it's amazingly dangerous and they cause problems for themselves and others.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >They are not, surprisingly. That's absolutely insane. One would think the Nordics would be a bit morse sensible on this. Here in Austria they are mandatory between November and April even if you live in places that don't see much snow. Yeah, it's an added expense and PITA but when the snow does come it's overall way safer.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    WDYM public transportation does not work?
    - lnsru 3y ago
      It’s in German: https://www.bild.de/regional/muenchen/muenchen-aktuell/schnee-chaos-warum-kann-muenchen-keinen-winter-86331818.bild.html https://www.bild.de/regional/muenchen/muenchen-aktuell/schne... This news source isn’t most reputable. But you get it from the pictures - the workers clean snow and ice by hand. We did it with neighbors on Saturday. It took 4 hours to remove 20 inches of snow without tractor for us.
  - croes 3y ago
    They should pay their workers more.
  - martin_a 3y ago
    Markus Söder is currently busy with getting a ban on gendered words going in schools. Obviously that's much more important than anything else. Prost! :-)
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      German gendered language is horrible. Not the most pressing issue, though.
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        I look forward to de-gendered German. And a riform on spelling. :)
- fallingknife 3y ago
  You can make a good argument the other way, though. The common currency results in a weaker currency than the Deutsch mark would be if Germany wasn't in the Euro. This results in German exports being much more competitive. So in a way, the EU finances Germany.
  - psychlops 3y ago
    Unless, of course, they want to buy imports with their not strong currency.
croes 3y ago
Germany can't, a judge from the Nazis times prohibited such strikes in the sixties. Edit: Seems like some need a history lesson about Hans Carl Nipperdey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Carl_Nipperdey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Carl_Nipperdey

It does tend to help. I read somewhere that "Germany is financing the EU, but Bavaria is financing Germany", that probably not entirely true, but it is fun to think about.

lnsru 3y ago
I am in Munich right now. Bavaria should start doing something about this. Snow from Friday is still not taken care of. Public transportation still does not work. Pathetic.
- piva00 3y ago
  A friend of mine was supposed to move from Berlin to München for a job during last Saturday. He can't, trains were fucked, airport was closed, flight canceled and you can't trust DB during the best of days and weather, no way to be sure you will get there unless you have a car. Seems to be a complete clusterfuck, as someone living in the Nordics it's pretty funny to think that a bit of snow can simply grind to a halt the richest area of Germany.
  - croes 3y ago
    Because most employees cannot participate in wealth.
  - fl7305 3y ago
    Southern Sweden with 80% of the Swedish population rarely sees much snow. A few centimeters can cause big problems there too.
    - patall 3y ago
      Exactly. Stockholm experienced 10cm of snow last week and now ~-15°C (well, -20 in Uppsala) and the trains are in total chaos
      - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        News flash. Stockholm is not in southern sweden. Also Stockholm subway is famous for breaking down even if a single leave fall on the tracks.
        patall 3y ago
        > Southern Sweden with 80% of the Swedish population > Stockholm is not in southern sweden Are you sure this the level of comments you are supposed to post here?
        fl7305 3y ago
        Dang it, I got nerdsniped (https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/). With the help of ChatGPT, I crossreferenced two lists of all municipalities (kommuner) in Sweden to place them in an increasing latitude order (south->north), and calculated where the 80% population threshold lies. The answer is Västerås, which is a bit north of Stockholm. It is only 31.7% of the distance to the northernmost point in Sweden. So 80% of Sweden's population lives in the southernmost 32% of the country. This might not be called "Sydsverige" in Swedish, but describing it to a foreigner I think 32% qualifies as "Southern Sweden".
        pastage 3y ago
        I will resist this nerdsnipe. I know there is a population density map as well I think the 250m squares is freely available. So we could make a slider from Ystad to Treriksröset from 0% to 100% would make a good progress bar.
        3y ago
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    TBF the last time that part of Germany had that much snow in such a short time so early was about twenty years ago. Those parts of Germany where snow is more common (mainly in the mountains) saw no or little disruptions.
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    > Nordics it's pretty funny to think that a bit of snow can simply grind to a halt the richest area of Germany. Yeaaah about that, Denmark is currently covered in snow and the country isn't equipped to deal with it at all. As soon as the snow starts falling busses and trains are cancelled, people realize that maybe winter tires aren't such a bad idea, roads aren't cleared because the cities don't actually have the budgets to deal with it. So you can't rely on public transport, but driving can be dangerous because many roads aren't kept clear and other people are idiots, driving around on summer tires (that includes busses and trucks).
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >people realize that maybe winter tires aren't such a bad idea Hold the phone. Are you telling me winter tires are not mandatory by law in Denmark in winter?!
      - mrweasel 3y ago
        They are not, surprisingly. I guess the reasoning is that during a normal winter they are required for maybe a few weeks. Many won't switch because they either don't want to pay for a second set of tires, or because it hurt fuel economy for most of the winter. All year tires are also somewhat popular, but they don't work as well in snow. You could probably get a fine for driving without them if the weather makes it unsafe, but that would be because you're not driving according to conditions. Anyway, loads of people are driving around on summer tires during the winter and it's amazingly dangerous and they cause problems for themselves and others.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >They are not, surprisingly. That's absolutely insane. One would think the Nordics would be a bit morse sensible on this. Here in Austria they are mandatory between November and April even if you live in places that don't see much snow. Yeah, it's an added expense and PITA but when the snow does come it's overall way safer.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  WDYM public transportation does not work?
  - lnsru 3y ago
    It’s in German: https://www.bild.de/regional/muenchen/muenchen-aktuell/schnee-chaos-warum-kann-muenchen-keinen-winter-86331818.bild.html https://www.bild.de/regional/muenchen/muenchen-aktuell/schne... This news source isn’t most reputable. But you get it from the pictures - the workers clean snow and ice by hand. We did it with neighbors on Saturday. It took 4 hours to remove 20 inches of snow without tractor for us.
- croes 3y ago
  They should pay their workers more.
- martin_a 3y ago
  Markus Söder is currently busy with getting a ban on gendered words going in schools. Obviously that's much more important than anything else. Prost! :-)
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    German gendered language is horrible. Not the most pressing issue, though.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      I look forward to de-gendered German. And a riform on spelling. :)
fallingknife 3y ago
You can make a good argument the other way, though. The common currency results in a weaker currency than the Deutsch mark would be if Germany wasn't in the Euro. This results in German exports being much more competitive. So in a way, the EU finances Germany.
- psychlops 3y ago
  Unless, of course, they want to buy imports with their not strong currency.

croes 3y ago

Germany can't, a judge from the Nazis times prohibited such strikes in the sixties. Edit: Seems like some need a history lesson about Hans Carl Nipperdey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Carl_Nipperdey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Carl_Nipperdey