Aren't state aids forbidden in the EU?
Not at all. Even the ECB is buying company bonds since the financial crisis.
The first "source" I found is in German only unfortunately: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wertpapierkaufprogramme_des_Eu...
German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
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Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#92Does it mean that every german will have to pay about $10B / 80m = 125 euros for that ? So it means that they'll have, for example, to wait a little longer to buy their next phone, or lunch ? (I ask the question here because that's the kind of reasoning I read in the press but I'd like to know if it's as simple as that)
I guess, if they started paying now. But the (high) taxes have been collected for so long the state has some considerable savings by now...
Haha. Really. NRW is bankrupt by now.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#93One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…
Surprised no one has said it so I will: conferences provide a business deductible way to have a nice vacation. Witness how many conferences are in Vegas/Hawaii etc.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#94One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…
I've got a friend who now works from home. Took them all of 3 days to set up. And yet they want her back in the office as soon as possible. Mind boggling to be honest. She's saving so much time and money not commuting and still does the same amount of work. She says she doesn't like it though, the office environment is better. So there's that.
In fact, my worry is that this event will actually impede WFH. You've got a bunch of people who don't want to WFH, or who have kids at home or other handicaps; the productivity hit will be tremendous, and bosses will feel this.
Sure, we can rationally explain it away, but I doubt any of that will stick to a boss who was already on the fence or somewhat against WFH. They will just see their biases confirmed.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#95One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…
I am interested to know how you have found networking and informal discussions surrounding conference talks.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#96What does this mean in the context of state aid rules? I'm quite worried that the EU's attempts to pick up the pieces of the economic carnage will clash with Britain's attempts. Inability to agree what counts as fair, will be a major block in any negotiation, and catalyse the economic partition of Brexit.
It means that the wealthy states get wealthier and the poorer get poorer. State aid rules have been massively relaxed, but the structural problems with the eurozone that mean Germany can afford to bail out their businesses like this and other poorer, worse-hit countries cannot are still there. I'm not sure Brexit is the EU-related economic partition we should be most worried about right now.
To the point.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#97What does this mean in the context of state aid rules? I'm quite worried that the EU's attempts to pick up the pieces of the economic carnage will clash with Britain's attempts. Inability to agree what counts as fair, will be a major block in any negotiation, and catalyse the economic partition of Brexit.
It means Brexit is stupid as the UK could've done whatever it wanted within the EU.
Well, they will work that up later. Money is transferred as compensation and everyone is happy.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#98Sadly, France and The Netherlands bailing out Air France and KLM last week, resp., forced the hand and diminished leverage for the German federal state I guess. I thought subsidies (to former state monopolies, of all things) was the one thing that need explicit consent under EU treaties. Now the people of DE, FR, and NL have to bail out a business that has no perspective to return a profit for the foreseeable future.…
The problem is that these companies are so inefficient and the conserved the 30 years old business practices very well internally because the governments are keep bailing them out. Maybe it would be for the better to let them fall and start over. Build an airliner that operates effectively and widen the margin. There are other alternatives. For 10 - 15B EUR (estimated) we could connect the major European cities with a high speed train network powered by renewables / green energy. If we keep bailing them out this surely won't happen.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#99One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…
Technical conferences switch to videoconferencing software. But they got much much worse in the process.
Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
TBH i expected this to happen some time. I wonder how much funding agencies like NIH , ERC etc spent on travel grants per year. From my experience it s a lot
There's still a huge difference between meeting people in the halls at conferences or working with them during a seminar-visit and looking at video-conference screens.
Not sure if huge. i ve enjoyed lectures more, and there is a lot of interaction in breakout chat rooms , probably more that RL conferences
Also, conferences easily scale to thousands now