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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

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Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#271

Post by newaccount74 »

jonhohle wrote: post #244
Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

During the previous six years, it struck me as completely bizarre that there was any pushback for bringing manufacturing or energy production back locally. It doesn’t have to be nationalist, it’s just adding redundancy in case your trading partner realizes they have over powered leverage. No business wants to concede to a vendor that they are irreplaceable. Edit: Likewise, watching Germany dismantle its nuclear infra…

Energy politics in the public discourse was often dominated by environmental concerns, and there wasn't a singular focus on CO2 as we have now.

Gas has been a popular choice, because it is a lot cleaner than coal / light oil / wood from a local pollution perspective. It burns cleanly, so switching to gas heating significantly reduces pollution in cities.

Nuclear energy is NOT clean, because it has the huge unsolved problem of what to do with the radioactive waste. Nobody wants radioactive waste anywhere near them, and there just isn't any place where you can put radioactive waste where it will be safe for a few hundred years.

But the biggest reason for our fear of nuclear energy is Chernobyl. It's been 37 years, and Chernobyl is still a danger.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#272

Post by paganel »

lobochrome wrote: post #241
Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security. So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of vie…

The problem with a country like Germany is that it's too big for Europe (as a continent), but too "small" for the world. Similar thing for France. Of course that the European Union was meant as a solution for this problem (and for the accompanying wars caused by it). I'd say that while the EU has been a great project from an economic pov from a political and geo-strategic pov this war in Ukraine is showing its huge weaknesses.

Imo only the US, China and partially Russia (and maybe India) can be really autarchic, all of these countries that span almost an entire continent (or a big part of it).

Not sure if there's a solution to all of this, from Europe's point of view. Ideally by this point we should have had a genuine political and societal union (I'm from Romania myself, another EU member), but that has failed, it is failing (of course that the powers that be refuse to acknowledge that). Without that genuine political and societal union one cannot have an autarchic Europe.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#273

Post by ricardobayes »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #111
LAC-Tech wrote: post #29

This doesn't make sense to me. Can i get an explanation? The German state seized a local German branch of the Russian Gazprom company. In order to secure its energy supplies... which come from Russia. Are they in essence capturing some reserves?

I read a great reader comment on the topic (also in German so try DeepL) https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9cb54d35 Its a political push and pull about who defaults on the existing contracts on gas import, seeing as Russia wants to be payed in ruble now, while Germany would prefer the payments to be stuck on a EU bank account as a form of reparation payments to the Ukraine. To prevent this outcome, Russia in effect might be l…

I completely agree with a part of the comment that DE gov't probably didn't consider a long war or a long bad relation with RU. If they did, there wouldn't have been blocking Spain's proposal to supply EU with Algerian and Moroccan gas. And they would have been looking into incentivizing solar, geothermal, etc. with immediate effect. Since German heavy industry is very dependent on Russian gas, if it's not coming, it's almost guaranteed a global economic meltdown much like 2008. Since it's not coming from banks liquidity this time, we are unprepared for it.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#274

Post by siscia »

jonhohle wrote: post #244
Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

During the previous six years, it struck me as completely bizarre that there was any pushback for bringing manufacturing or energy production back locally. It doesn’t have to be nationalist, it’s just adding redundancy in case your trading partner realizes they have over powered leverage. No business wants to concede to a vendor that they are irreplaceable. Edit: Likewise, watching Germany dismantle its nuclear infra…

Adding redundancies is bad from an economic view centered in the next few months.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#275

Post by diskapital »

uniqueuid wrote: post #192
diskapital wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There is a huge difference between the rule of law in proper democracies ("Rechtsstaaten") and arbitrary political decisions in totalitarian states (such as Russia). German ministers can implement some draconian decisions, but they are operating in a large system of checks and balances, including independent courts and required parliamentary support for passing legislation. The two scenarios are therefore roughly as…

> There is a huge difference between the rule of law in proper democracies ("Rechtsstaaten") and arbitrary political decisions in totalitarian states (such as Russia).

I'm tempted to agree. However, I did raise a specific counter-example. In that case, a "proper democracy" (Mossadegh was democratically elected and presumably used entirely legal means to nationalize APOC assets), and then the long arms (CIA, MI6) of another set of "proper democracies?" undertook a violent coup to take back the assets. I'm not aware of how/whether those "long arms" interacted with the large system of checks and balances that you mentioned.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#276

Post by mopsi »

rgmarker wrote: post #121
martimarkov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you forget that Ukraine has the right of agency and has the right to choose to join a defensive union. I'm also finding it hard to get any concrete examples of offensive actions by NATO. So far every single one seems to be okay with Russia (given they didn't veto it in the UN security council).

Suppose the following reversed situation: - There is still a Warsaw Pact. - An Orange Revolution happens in Canada in 2014, backed by KGB neocon equivalents of Nuland/Graham. - A Russia friendly regime is installed in Canada in 2014. - Canada has regions with large U.S. populations. - Canada keeps pushing for Warsaw Pact membership. - At a security conference in Munich in 2022, Canada's Russia friendly prime minister…

Why do these analogies always leave out the part where the US commits genocide time and time again against Canada so that Canada sees such pacts as the only way to survive against renewed US calls for genocide in Canada?

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#277

Post by mnadkvlb »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #264
tawaypol wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tempting to think that the governments of these states have been infiltrated by their enemies.

Hanlon's razor applies here I think. Don't attribute to "the enemy" what can be adequately explained by incompetence.

Maybe. but existance of leaders like Gerhard Schröder displays a different story.

(he is sitting on russian gas companies’ boards, after heavily going against nuclear). No shit the leaders failed the country for their own gains, seems like.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#278

Post by diskapital »

spyder wrote: post #185
diskapital wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"Is that illegal?" "The German economy ministry said Gazprom Germania violated foreign trade law." "Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved."

> "The German economy ministry said Gazprom Germania violated foreign trade law."

And that's sufficient basis for a legal system to reassign ownership of assets?

Just for debate, lets say Google search is critical infrastructure and Google unilaterally took some action that upset the German economy ministry, would the legal system enable German authorities to take over assets that Google had within Germany and/or areas still under German control?

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#279

Post by johannes1234321 »

throwaway48375 wrote: post #265
johannes1234321 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we're not talking about small cuts of leaves but some highly industrialized component it is not so easy as counting leaves and mixing them together. You can certainly analyse the flavors, but that won't tell you much on the production process for creating this with all the artificial components. However that could creates some creativity in place and create similar, but different (better? Worse? Who knows) product…

So we don't have the technology to analyze chemical components of things? I still find that hard to believe.

You can analyze components, but that doesn't give you a process to recreate in scale. Many aromas and stuff are remainders of some Enzym processing things or some chemical reaction where the initial ingredient is dissolved.

I myself spend some time in bread and a part of the taste of bread comes from my bacteria/yeast culture growing here at my place, feeding of stuff which is in the air at my place. If i go elsewhere that already changes to a small degree. If I vary temperature, humidity of air ... this has impact. On industrial scale the impacts are way more as they use processes to ensure the end product stays as much the same as possible independently from changes to ingredients (natural products change with each harvest ...) and where it is processed further (a Big Mac is, by McD, supposed to be as equal lgibally as possible) this is done by having Enzyms, chemicals and other comments doing their work.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#280

Post by thriftwy »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #254
Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Let's be fair: this was a massive, strategic aim of the Russian state. Germany didn't randomly fall into this situation, there has been decades of influence, bribery, and espionage in Germany to develop that dependency. Kids may need to be reminded that Germany has only been reunified for 32 years and Berlin was divided from the USSR controlled East Germany by a physical wall. Russia is is so motivated to expand its…

> Kids may need to be reminded that Berlin was divided from the USSR controlled East Germany by a physical wall

They should also definitely remember what they did to cause this.

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