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Germany Falls into Recession

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Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#181

Post by looping__lui »

j-pb wrote: post #157
cbmuser wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The decision to shut down our nuclear reactors came from a conservative government, where the greens were in the opposition. Wrong. The nuclear phase-out original came from SPD/Greens: > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomkonsens > The prices have not been rising due to the shutdown of our nuclear plants, but due to price gauging by electrical companies, and due to russia falling away as a cheap gas supplier. They h…

> Wrong. The nuclear phase-out original came from SPD/Greens: The phase out in it's current form was decided by a CDU led government. "Chancellor Merkel was so shocked by Fukushima that she turned Germany’s energy focus from nuclear (of which she closed 41% and will close the rest within a decade) to efficiency and renewables." > After all, the German Ministry of Economics is working on a law to subsidize electricity…

All optimistic modeling (e.g., by the Fraunhofer) that will “show us the path to green electricity” assume that we will double the capacity for gas by 2030 or so in order to have a backup if solar and wind are not available to sustain the required load.

We will need to build up 5x of the required peak capacity with renewables in Germany per Fraunhofer.

After we have installed about 6x (!) of our peak capacity in renewables and gas, we will still emit about 150g/kWh on average of CO2 - which is more than twice of France.

This is so ridiculous. Electricity prices will increase insanely - e.g., installing 600% of the required capacity isn’t exactly resourceful. But that isn’t what matters here: it’s ideology we are after, right? Having the right ideology.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#182

Post by looping__lui »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #93
pulse7 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and all this happened because German car makes were willing to give COMPLETE KNOW-HOW (on how to make good cars) just to be able to sell in Chinese market... Now China has learned how to make good (enough) cars and - they will out-compete Germans with low prices... Who wants to pay 60.000€ for an electric car in you can get one for 30.000€ from China?

It happened because German car makers were not willing to commit to electric cars.

Plus there is no infrastructure to actually charge them. Plus our electric grids do not support millions of electric vehicles. Plus, you may realize that in Germany we emit a sh*t-ton of carbon dioxide for generating electricity that ball-park wise you may only save about 25% compared to a regular car (e.g., 25% charging losses, 400 g/kWh carbon dioxide intensity in Germany,…)

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#183

Post by looping__lui »

c00lio wrote: post #103
amadeuspagel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happened because German car makers were not willing to commit to electric cars.

That too. German car makers got lazy with research and development. In addition, they were hesitant to give up their investment in ICE production, risk staff reductions, and corresponding political and strike problems. This lead to most of the knowledge around EVs being developed and patented elsewhere, especially battery knowledge is firmly in Chinese hands. At the same time the grandparent is also right, China wise…

So you would have bet the future of an entire industry in the German governments ability to actually get the electric grid ready for everyone moving to EV?

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#184

Post by HDThoreaun »

starbugs wrote: post #127
jonp888 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is about HackerNews and the obesession with the decision to remove Nuclear Power, which was only a minority component at it's peak, from the German energy mix, as somehow being the dominant factor in the entire German society and economy? A while back someone unironically described Germany's nuclear power policy as "the single most catastrophic decision ever made by any government in peacetime".

> A while back someone unironically described Germany's nuclear power policy as "the single most catastrophic decision ever made by any government in peacetime". German here. Accurate description if you ask me. It's one of the dumbest and most irrational decisions ever made in energy politics. It's completely inexcusable.

The great leap forward? Holodomor? These decisions directly killed tens of millions of people.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#185

Post by s1artibartfast »

prottog wrote: post #178
s1artibartfast wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking only at workers earnings is misleading in both Germany and the United States because it ignores monetary transfers through the government, which is a huge component of GDP. I can't speak for Germany, but for the US, worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits. Similarly, it's impossible for worker income to grow at the rate of GDP while taxes grow faster than GDP

Absolutely true, and it's a good point; but I'm not sure if the source I listed for Germany includes or excludes transfer receipts.

yeah, It is kind of the elephant in the room nobody talks about in these discussions.

If you look at the US, inflation adjusted Government spending tripled between 2000 and 2022. Do people feel that they are getting 300% more services for the taxes 300% higher than 20 years ago. Schools, roads, healthcare, and prisons certainly aren't 3X better.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2022/Oc...

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#186

Post by Fgehono »

prottog wrote: post #159
j-pb wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the shut down of nuclear power thanks to the Greens The decision to shut down our nuclear reactors came from a conservative government, where the greens were in the opposition. The prices have not been rising due to the shutdown of our nuclear plants, but due to price gauging by electrical companies, and due to russia falling away as a cheap gas supplier. Nuclear only made up 5% of our energy production 2023 and 11…

> The decision to shut down our nuclear reactors came from a conservative government, where the greens were in the opposition. The conservative party was in government when that decisions was made, yes, but this discounts the decades of Greens opposition to nuclear power, and crucially that the strong Greens showing in the Baden-Württemberg elections in 2011. Without the greens there would have been no impetus to shu…

So the opposition now is responsible for the decisions of the party in Power?

Ah yes I don't think that this works that way

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#187

Post by jjoonathan »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #173
prottog wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median real wage in Germany grew until the 90s, stagnated for a while, then started declining in the early noughts[0], with the effect worse for new entrants to the employment marketplace (i.e. young people and immigrants). The latter is predictable in a developed country (meaning past peak GDP growth) with high social safety nets and employee protection (meaning an additional burden for newer entrants to clear).…

Looking only at workers earnings is misleading in both Germany and the United States because it ignores monetary transfers through the government, which is a huge component of GDP. I can't speak for Germany, but for the US, worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits. Similarly, it's impossible for worker income to grow at the rate of GDP while taxes grow faster than GDP

> worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits

I thought counting medical inflation as a salary increase only changed the threshold from 90% to 80% of workers seeing wage contraction over the last 40 years.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#188

Post by s1artibartfast »

jjoonathan wrote: post #187
s1artibartfast wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking only at workers earnings is misleading in both Germany and the United States because it ignores monetary transfers through the government, which is a huge component of GDP. I can't speak for Germany, but for the US, worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits. Similarly, it's impossible for worker income to grow at the rate of GDP while taxes grow faster than GDP

> worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits I thought counting medical inflation as a salary increase only changed the threshold from 90% to 80% of workers seeing wage contraction over the last 40 years.

There's a bunch of papers and books that recalculate growth after transfer payments. Here is a link to one book review and you can take a look at some of the figures that they came up with.

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2022/12/calomiris-on-gram...?

When you see those numbers about wage stagnation it always comes down to three big questions:

1) Are transfers & taxes included 2) Do you calculate the value of the transfer at the cost the government spent, or the utility received 3) What inflation metric you use

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#189

Post by paulddraper »

mrguyorama wrote: post #174
paulddraper wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we turn around today and start building a hundred nuclear plants all over the world, it will take decades for them to come online and start displacing fossil fuel energy production A. Construction start to finish is well under a decade. B. This concern is true of any alternative energy source. > The push for "we shouldn't do renewables, because they can't do the job, so we should invest in nuclear" is about…

Name "Big Renewable".

General Electric, NextEra, Tesla, JinkoSolar, Vestas Wind

Tesla has $100B+ bigger market cap than any "Big Oil" company.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#190

Post by nradov »

dangwhy wrote: post #180
nradov wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases it isn't a literal subsidy. Fannie Mae acts as a government-sponsored market maker to purchase home mortgages from lenders, then package and sell them to investors. By providing an "artificial" source of liquidity and taking on significant balance sheet risk they keep mortgage interest rates much lower than they would be in a free market system. https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us

got it. Doesn't make sense to limit supply and also subsidize a product a the same time. Wouldn't that automatically increase prices? How does high prices help the people govt is trying to help. All this makes no sense to me. why are they doing this.

Mortgages are subsidized by the federal government. Housing supply is limited by state and local governments. Those are separate entities which often work in conflict with each other.
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