Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#351

Post by screenbreakout » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #273

cf141q5325 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know where to add this question without it seeming off subject, but seeing as we're heading into spring, seeing Germany has quite a wealthy economy and QOL, that many if not most workers get 5 weeks of holiday, the chip shortage is leading to slowdowns in the automotive industry etc... why doesn't the government just go cold turkey, give people a month or 2 free holidays while drastically reducing public lighting, telling businesses to stop heating their premises at night etc etc... I mean we had a dress rehearsal 2 years ago with the onset of Covid, this would be better ,for a good cause, probably give a boost to domestic spending and send a f...U to the rest of the world saying we too can think outside of the box :-)

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#352

Post by lorenzfx » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

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…

I'm not sure if this is the right answer.

The prevailing political view, was that strong economic ties would make war and violent conflict between Germany and Russia impossible. This is basically what happened intentionally and successfully between Germany and France after World War II first with European Coal and Steel Community and later the European Union.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#353

Post by albertopv » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #345

lobochrome wrote: post #110

They sold the company to new owners on Friday who then tried to liquidate it. Gazprom Germania is the counterpart to Gas dealers and utilities. It then has an intra-company agreement with Gazprom Russia. If they had liquidated, those contracts would have been gone and the Gas dealers & utilities would have had to renegotiate new contracts with Gazprom Russia. This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles…

Given the collapse(-ing) value of the Ruble, why would they want that?

Ruble went down but then fully recovered

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#354

Post by petre » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

lobochrome wrote: post #247

neilwilson wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Luxembourg entities are not on the EU sanctions list[0]. That entity will essentially own Russia's Euro reserves from now on. It's not as if this hasn't happened before. The 'EuroDollar' came about after the invasion of Hungary in 1956. Russia has just invented the 'RuskiEuro', which is how the Bank of Russia will hold Euros for the duration - probably in settlement accounts at the National Clearing Centre in Mos…

I agree. And since the RuskiEuro will be backed by a massive amount of commodity it'll be fairly hard currency. Zoltan Poszar has been clear on this[0]. My gut feeling is, that the EU, without any commodities, has a single choice: kick the Russian gas habit immediately, and force Russia to kill their western gas fields. Then pray they collapse in the next few years. If the EU keeps paying - Russia's new Gazprom centr…

President Trump was right about the gas terminal, North Stream 2 and ≥2% GDP for NATO militaries. Of course it was coming from his advisors. But no, the EU leadership decided to live in fantasy land. Only Eastern European states, Poland and the Baltics understood.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#355

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

type0 wrote: post #349

rs999gti wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was simply the cheapest, most reliable source of energy. What about the nuclear reactors that DE chose to shut down for Russian natural gas?

You can thank huge Russia funded "green" movement for that

German were incredibly anti-nuclear long before. Blaming this on Russia is nonsense.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#356

Post by ivan_gammel » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #330

ivan_gammel wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a theory that does not take into account the circumstances of the Russian invasion. In the long term, it does make sense to stop importing oil and gas from Russia to prevent the future aggression, because it will indeed weaken the regime. In the short term, if EU stops buying oil and gas immediately, Russia still has: 1) possibility to export to China and other non-aligned markets (many countries which a…

I am not convinced. It still mean people will have blood on their hands when they knowingly are providing the funds for a war. It is a very dangerous bet to hope that the Russians won't have enough time to use the money, that peace will arrive before that funds reaches the military operations. People should aim to end the war before this summer, but what if it doesn't happen? That gas, oil and coal are means for miss…

>That gas, oil and coal are means for missiles and hired mercenaries.

Russia is not a banana republic where you could possibly find the direct link between the export revenues and military expenses. This is not how Russian economy works, the picture is much more complicated.

First of all, the revenue from oil and gas sales is collected in foreign currency. Russian budget receives the money in taxes paid by exporters, but these money must be converted first to rouble. The conversion rate can be regulated by the central bank through purchases and sales of the currency and they of course can print money when necessary. This means that this currency actually never reaches the recipients of the budget money and exchange rate can be adjusted to serve the needs of the economy.

Second, Russia produces nearly all of its military equipment and pays for it in rouble. There's almost no mercenaries in this conflict, it is mostly regular army, which also receives their salaries in rouble. They have very low exposure to external economic shocks and if necessary can switch to the war economy mode at the cost of the rest of Russian population.

Now, what happens if Russia stops exporting oil and gas to Europe? Just in the last year Russia collected 50% more money than it planned in the annual budget. The extra money are usually deposited in the Reserve Fund and National Wealth Fund and re-invested, but they can be used in crisis times. Basically, just in the last year Russia collected enough money to survive 6 months of oil and gas trade embargo (and this is 150% of its military budget). Let's say, some of these money are frozen on European and American bank accounts and cannot actually be used except for servicing the debt. Still plenty of these savings are still accessible. Besides that, Russian central bank can still print money to fund the war. This may result in even higher inflation, but the economic bloc of Russian government is extremely competent and can mitigate the impact on the population.

Ordinary Russian people will inevitably notice the economic downturn, but their mentality is the mentality of survival and mobilization, plus the state propaganda can justify the means very convincingly and repressive apparatus can silence those who disagree. We are talking about many years of attrition until the economic situation becomes untolerable. No sanctions in the world will force Russian people to overthrow the government in the next year or two, just like they did not work for North Korea, Venezuela or Iran.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#357

Post by petre » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

albertopv wrote: post #353

LatteLazy wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the collapse(-ing) value of the Ruble, why would they want that?

Ruble went down but then fully recovered

Yup. Not fully but close enough. Too bad.

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=RUB

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#358

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #346

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a lot of fast food burgers in the US but never have I had a bare patty in a bun, unless I specifically asked for it a time or two as a child.

What likely happened in this case is they gave GP a burger intended for someone who ordered it 'plain'. The slips McDonalds uses to attach special order tags to the sandwich wrappers are prone to falling off or being overlooked.

N'ah, the employees were just overworked so made mistakes or cut corners. The amount of customers that come at an airport or a train station at rush hour is insane. Mistakes happen, or some employees cut corners to save time, knowing that the customers won't have time to notice the mistake and complain about it, since they have a train/flight to catch.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#359

Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

albertopv wrote: post #353

LatteLazy wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the collapse(-ing) value of the Ruble, why would they want that?

Ruble went down but then fully recovered

I stand corrected! I thought it was still way down.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#360

Post by UncleOxidant » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

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…

> In exchange the US got cheap goods (and low inflation)... Inflation is ripping higher

Part of the reason inflation is ripping higher (and this was beginning to happen even pre-pandemic) was because the previous administration began tradewars which began to rip up global supply chains. Yes, the bulk of our inflation currently is due to the pandemic, but a good chunk of it was going to start happening anyway even if the pandemic never happened because we began to disrupt global wage arbitrage. Bringing jobs back to America was always going to lead to a period of inflation.