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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

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Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#381

> 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…

> the sanctions on Russia have prompted what some observers are calling Bretton Woods III,

You know, if you go down that path it will never end. It's like the gold standard. It's going to fail every single time. Bretton Woods is doomed to fail. It was doomed to fail the day it was introduced.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#382
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine wasn’t armed with hi-tech weaponry until Russia started invading in 2014 and then continued being a bad actor which culminated in January/February 2022 delivery of said weapons at the last second. NATO expansion is a convenient excuse but fails for two reasons: 1. Baltics are closer to Moscow than Ukraine and right on the border. 2. It is widely acknowledged that the primary driver for Putin is not NATO expan…

this! Yeah, this argument about the NATO threat is repeated ad nauseam because it superficially sounds like a reasonable justification: "they just had to defend themselves". But even if that was true, Otto von Bismarck said it well: "Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death". Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west. In this alt…

> Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west.

if nato were at russian border then russia would in some ways be china's ukraine. possibly something they preferred to avoid

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#383
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where might Germany get its fossil fuels? How about nuclear? https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/the-true-face-of-the-anti-n... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464

Gas is used firstly for heating, then in the chemical industry in Germany.

heating with electric powered heat pumps would be way more efficient

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoting but Russia most definitely cannot be self-sufficient. Unless you mean in a theoretical or future sense. Most of it exports are energy, and their industry depends heavily on western and chinese machinery and components.

Enough smart people to create a small world within.

No, it's more logical to send all the smart people to Germany, let them work there and then sell your resources to Germany. You can then buy high quality products from Germany and thereby be completely independent from a properly functioning domestic economy.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#385
post #260

> 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…

> 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 time." And Germany is not unique. Quite quick actually. The ex chancellor of germany [0] became Nord Streams' [1] Chairman of the Shareholders' Committee (since 2006) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

And Rosneft and Gazprom.

It's completely brazen.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ruble went down but then fully recovered

It's not a real exchange rate because there is no free exchange. Russian exporters forced to exchange 80% of hard currency to rubles. An individual can get maximum $10k in cash until at least 9th September: https://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=12744 (and there are similar limits on international payments/transfers).

When there is no free exchange rate is not very meaningful.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#387
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a “sovereign” nation Germany is awfully dependent on Putin for energy and the US for defense. My position is not that Germany has no agency it’s that it traded away it’s much of its agency to appease the Greens. These opinions come not from American TV but from my relatives. Freistaat Bayern uber alles! Sorry about taking over Europe again, hope you are enjoying the EU dictating your countries economic fortunes.

Talk like that gets you World War 3.

If people spent more time walking and less time talking world war 3 wouldn’t have already started.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#388
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> Russian budget receives the money in taxes paid by exporters

That is incorrect. The oil and gas companies is owned by a few oligarchies with direct ties to Putin and the Russian government. Based on what secret service and other agencies has leaked, there isn't a major difference between what is the Russian government, what is controlled by Putin, and what is owned by the owners of the oligarchies. To a degree they operate just like a banana republic in this aspect, although a better comparison is likely state owned Chinese companies that get funded, instructed, operated by government personal, given benefits by their secret service, and with party representatives being directly involved in the leader structure and ownership.

And it may indeed take years before the sanctions actually hurt enough for the Russian government to start move to the peace table. American war in Afghanistan took 20 years. Iraq started in 2003 and ended in fully in 2021. Their war in Pakistan took 14 years. Yemen is still ongoing, same in Somalia, and Syria.

6 months would be comparable short, and it is not out of the question that it may take many years. The more funds they get the easier they have in continuing operations. And while Russia produces nearly all of its military equipment, just like the US does, both require a lot of imports to actually do the production. Military equipment require a lot of electronics, much which isn't produced in Russia. Machines, vehicles, technology and tools all depend on international supply chains, and the more isolated the nation is the harder and more money they need to spend on maintaining those critical imports. All while the nations population suffer from the economic downturn. At some point reserves gets low and that is when peace is best pursuit.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#389

> The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024 Plenty of LNG ships and suppliers. Cheap gas is not worth an immense cost of human life. I think this timetable could be moved forward far quicker.

Expensive gas also costs human life, and a national shortage over winter could easily kill hundreds, and ruin many more lives.

That said, sometimes you do need to make tough geo-political decisions, where every option has a horrible cost. While the primary blame falls on the aggressor nation, it doesn't make those decisions easier.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#390

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…

> new owners

This was a completely fraudulent construct. 100% of the voting rights were sold for the equivalent of 1 Euro to a single person with no serious business background (has dealt with cars and performed as a DJ). This is a company with billions of turnover. And 99.99999% of the ownership was bought back by the the company itself.

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