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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

businessinsider.com

211–220 of 424 posts

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#211
post #114
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear canceled by the Green Party .. after Fukushima. Trading one tail risk for another. (Germany has oddly lagged in deploying renewables, though. Possibly due to lack of offshore sites, meaning that wind farms have to be deployed against the efforts of NIMBYs)

Surely Germany's a big enough (and sparsely-populated enough) country that wind farms can go somewhere without complaint?

Germany is about 15% smaller than California, but with more than twice the population. Not exactly what I'd call "sparsely populated".

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#212
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greens are not financed by Russia, this is publicly available information. Neither they did anything that could look like a support of Russian agenda.

anti-nuclear is pro-fossil. I'm saying that russian psy-ops organize both sides of protesting factions in e.g. Qanon, yellow vests in France, etc. - why wouldn't they covertly finance anti-nuclear if they overtly finance pro-fossil? Greens are pro-environment, but don't offer substitute energy sources (because it isn't possible to offer them, a different discussion) - exactly the kind of turmoil Russia thrives in. bu…

> anti-nuclear is pro-fossil

Wrong and baseless. It is possible to simultaneously reduce nuclear and fossil components in the energy balance and this is exactly what is happening.

> why wouldn't they covertly finance anti-nuclear if they overtly finance pro-fossil?

Greens in Germany are established political party with clear anti-Putin positioning. Financing of political parties in Germany is transparent and has sufficient oversight, so there’s neither possibility nor any sense to covertly finance them.

> Greens are pro-environment, but don't offer substitute energy sources

Where did you get that from?

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#213
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read, the contracts between Gazprom Germany and Gazprom Export (on the Russian side) do not have a fixed settlement currency. > This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros "allowed" is a funny word - this situation is way past a point where cross-border contracts on either side hold any legal value. How are you going to hold anyone accountable for breach of contract?

Doesn’t the ITO (International Trade Organization) regulate international contacts with allowed and non allowed sanctions? I think Western states are currently tied to it, they can’t just impose “whatever” sanctions, and if we don’t, it would be legal for Russia to impose sanctions upon us. Currently Russia has no right to sanction us, so anything they do is a further breach of ITO, which further deepens their case.…

> they can’t just impose “whatever” sanctions

They can and they do. Enforcing any kind of international agreements in this situation is pure fiction.

> The good guy has to respect the rules

The existence of a bad guy doesn't imply the existence of a good guy.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#214
post #127

Despite germany's strong dislike for east europeans I am glad to see they are taking measures to help their allies. This is a positive move in the right direction, I hope we figure a way to help germany solve it's dependency of russia in due time, as indeed their economy needs protection.

German here: We don't dislike eastern europeans at all, at least not on any society wide level. Of course, there are exceptions. We do dislike backslides into authoritarianism in governance, like in Hungary (who's Victor Orban declared 'illiberal democracy' [1]). 1: https://verfassungsblog.de/illiberal-democracy-beyond-hungar...

Romanian ethnic here. There is no place in germany I can walk safely without feeling that if they hear me speak romanian I won't be verbally abused or looked down upon. Naturally there are exceptions, and there are many romanians in germany, but all of those I spoke with told me that at some point in time they have been racially profiled or outright abused. Their skill ranges from medical PhD, scientists, software developers, or workers, so status is not a factor. Furthermore there have been cases where hotels and resorts were asked to report all romanians to the police because apparently some dudes did some petty crime previous years and as such they had to "keep and eye on all" - and all was according to the german law. In Romania any time the government tries to raise the minimum wage, the german chamber of commerce tries to block it. All the while american, or british companies, have no issue paying a very decent salary - up to point where tech pay is rather high. Again, all those I spoke with told me that german and austrian companies outright insulted them with their pay offer because "romania is cheap". Again, there are exceptions to all this - see liverail, a partnership between german and romanian business people that was sold for 500mil to facebook. There are success stories, but much more horrible stories.

It goes well beyond politics, as you can see.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We seized your property under exigent circumstances, but you better honor your contracts rather than cancel them under exigent circumstances!” - NATO, apparently delusional The idea people will “honor” contracts while you’re (illegally) seizing their property in effort to enact an economic siege of their nation is mental illness — either delusions or megalomania. That strategy doesn’t make sense. I’m personally sad…

Okay, then Russia can keep their gas and have even lower income of cash (which they need to pay debts, by the way).

Why do they need to 'pay debts'?

Russia has just had its foreign reserves frozen. Those are debts too, which the West has repudiated. Why shouldn't Russia do the same in reverse?

Countries export solely to gain imports if they have any sense. If there are no imports to be had - due to sanctions - then there is no need to export. Far better, from Russia's point of view, that the oil is left in the ground, and the workers redeployed elsewhere. To the war effort for example.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gazprom attenpted to change owners and default the company. In that case the gas contracts would have been void including its negotiated prices (under currebt market value) and the currency in euro instead of rubbels.

> Gazprom attenpted to change owners and default the company. Is that illegal? I wonder about rule of law. We talk about this as sacrosanct here in the "West". It is funny that when push comes to shove (in my perception at least), we're quick to break the rules to get the outcome we want. When say a 3rd world country does something like this in response to a "Western" multinational's actions (perhaps a controversial…

You ask a question, then immediately assume the answer and draw conclusions based on that answer. I dispute that this is just something you like to think about ("Just asking questions here...") or that you are not pushing an agenda.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#218
post #176
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read, the contracts between Gazprom Germany and Gazprom Export (on the Russian side) do not have a fixed settlement currency. > This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros "allowed" is a funny word - this situation is way past a point where cross-border contracts on either side hold any legal value. How are you going to hold anyone accountable for breach of contract?

Can you back that up with a source? It's the opposite of what basically everyone has been saying and I can't find anything that even hints that there isn't a fixed settlement currency in their contracts. Russia has been trying to push this issue for weeks, while Germany and others are refusing to pay in anything but euros.

In all international trade the buyer pays with the currency they have, and the seller receives the currency they want to hold.

The banking system makes a handsome fee making that particular piece of alchemy happen.

Gory details about how this particular trick is pulled off is here[0] if you're interested.

[0]: https://new-wayland.com/blog/how-russian-gas-is-paid-for/

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#219
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but let’s not bring that up, it makes us look like a tinpot dictatorship nationalizing assets and assassinating people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_th...

This is a dispute between Germany and Russia. I'm not sure what US assassinations of middle eastern war lords have to do with it.

Hmmm, the larger dispute is between NATO and Russia. The USA is the head of NATO.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We seized your property under exigent circumstances, but you better honor your contracts rather than cancel them under exigent circumstances!” - NATO, apparently delusional The idea people will “honor” contracts while you’re (illegally) seizing their property in effort to enact an economic siege of their nation is mental illness — either delusions or megalomania. That strategy doesn’t make sense. I’m personally sad…

Okay, then Russia can keep their gas and have even lower income of cash (which they need to pay debts, by the way).

> then Russia can keep their gas

I guess the answer to that would be "and Germany can keep their cash and maybe have to burn it to heat homes or generate electricity"?

The war we're seeing (the economic war) is a point of mini-singularity, where a lot of we know to be true about the world is invalid. Such as an assumption that a state having debts will actually pay them.

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