Price of electricity in Germany rose 1095% since last year!

[earth_imperator]

no one's electricity bill in Germany went up 11 times over last years bill. I personally know two related families there. Germans, not ex-pats. Their bills are much higher, but nowhere near the screaming headlines.

Because the state heavily subsidizes the energy companies at the moment, but it is consensus that the bill for the consumers will rise at least 3x in the coming 2 years. But someone still has to pay the rest. Guess who?... Of course the people themselves via their taxes...

 

[Businessman]

Here in the UK, early this year I was paying 175 a month for my household electric and gas.
The national average was 110 a month. But we are a family of 5 so use above average.

My bill increased to 280 in April this year.
From this coming October it has been officially announced my bill will increase to 500 a month.
April next year it is expected to be 900 a month, although the rise for April has not been not announced yet.

From 175 to 900 is over 500% inflation!

That is an extra 700 a month i will need to find, on top of increased mortgage payments and increased petrol and food costs..

I reckon the inflation rate in my personal cost of living will be at least 30% come April 2023 vs March 2022.

 

[The_Krakenite]

The teachings of Athens thousands of years ago, already knew that Democracy had fatal flaws. One of them being that any system which allows the SAME vote by the 'village idiot' is going to have some repercussions.

Even today, nothing has changed. A politician only cares about their 4-year term, and will do whatever it takes to hurt the nation, if it means getting the village idiot's vote. Then the newer and often bigger problem created to get those votes is kicked down to road to whoever next goes into office.

It always cracks me up how many Americans act as though dictator ship has to be pure evil, and only democracy is the TRUE form of government. Not too long ago Americans used to preach the exact same thing about UK's Monarchy being pure evil.


I've even watched the US go to war and try to force democracy upon nations that did NOT WANT IT. Now, who is the dictator in that case? Or is it a paradox?

The western history books seem to do their best to not talk about all the good stuff that Hitler and Mussolini were capable of. Only the perceived bad is allowed to be printed in our cancel-culture environment.

Hitler got Germany out of its unrecoverable economy. At least, it would have been unrecoverable in any other system. This is exactly why he came to power. Mussolini actually was able to rid Italy of the government corruption by the Mafia (a feat said impossible in other forms of government like democracy). Interestingly to note, the Mafia fled Italy and ran to the US, which gave the US all sorts of problems ever since. After WW2, they were allowed back into Italy, which still has them corrupted to this very day with problems.

We can go on and on here, but we're usually not allowed to say anything positive about dictatorships, so I'll shut up now like a good little church boy and better not ask any questions!

 

[VicBee]

@VicBee, it's all Western propaganda. For example this: in Germany the officials, and with it the majority of the people, as well the official written and taught history says that East Germany (DDR aka GDR) was a bad country where people had no freedom and the state committed many crimes to suppress and oppress the people. In 1953 an uproar of the workers in East Berlin is since then celebrated in the West annually as a holiday to denounce East Germany, ie. their political/ideological system (West against East).

The West knows how to make propaganda, how to make an elephant from a fly.
The atrocities/crimes of West Germany itself are IMO more than 100-fold more than those of East Germany.
But the Western propaganda knows how to successfully highlight the crimes of others and blend & hide own crimes.

In reality East Germany was IMO the best Germany in history, a successful model state. Maybe not that successful like a turbo-capitalist West Germany, but it was one of the top leading countries of the Eastern block. They were at least honest.

Yes, you really, really want to believe that. But when the wall fell people didn't rush to the East and that's the most telling proof that you're wrong. And you will likely say that's because people are stupid and further show your admiration for dictatorships.
I'm sorry you fail to appreciate the power of diversity, the strength brought by various viewpoints, the energy of inclusiveness. Strict hierarchy, established dominance, homogeneity, all that may work in the military but it's a single purpose structure poorly suited to the real world.

 

[earth_imperator]

@VicBee, the success of a country does not depend on whether its governing system is a democracy or authoritarianism, or whatever.
Proof: China. Q.E.D.
Meaning: A hard working society with a fair justice system (ie. equal rights and duties for everybody) is the main key for success and sustainable growth for any society. Ie. a just society. Not any ideology. IMO.

Even you yourself confirmed the above said when you wrote:

It's also true that in China the time from ideation to delivery is stunningly short and gives added vibrancy to its dynamic economy. China pulled 800 million people out of poverty in 20 years, something never done in the history of humanity. That achievement has been recognized around the world and China gained huge appreciation capital from it.

 

[misterkel]

Because somehow, nuclear energy is not clean to these people. All they can think of is Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukishima.

Those are valid and need to be considered. However, the death rate per KWH from different fuels is by far lowest from nuclear. Moreover, those plants were of a previous generation from the beginnings of the system. Nuclear has improved its safety standards considerably by iteration and learning from those mistakes. Fukushima was a terribly conceived project located in an extraordinarily stupid place. Should never have existed.

They should really work on Thorium tech - 1000's of times safer for some fundamental reason.

 

[misterkel]

Well hell! As much as I hate the man, he was right! Now Germany is panicking! Is this one of those cases where we are being presented with a hand-picked win out of many failures, or was that a FA call?

He made a few other calls about Biden being pres which were right on - $7 gas or something like that. Can't remember the others, but they were pretty close. Not a T fan, but Im' beginning to realize he did see some shit others didn't.

 

[NeoTrader]

Friedman was an economist, not a political scientist. His opinion on democracy is no more valuable than that of any other intellectual.

This is complete and total bullshit. Only an idiot will consider "only opinions of political scientists". What he said is pure logic. Democracy is the way that many authoritarian regimes come to power(a simple look at latin america proves that, Venezuela being the poster child of this). Even the US, with what happened in Mar-a-Lago and an election that half the country believes it was a fraud(I'm not american, just stating facts). Canada has gone from an example of democracy to almost a dictatorship "overnight".

Hayek, another Nobel Laureate, also stated that democracy's only Advantage is the ability to change power from time to time and even that, because of what I said earlier is questionable.

Democracy is simply the tyranny of the majority and inevitably leads to authoritarianism. It may take longer in some places than in others, but it is the end result.

Even what Milton Friedman stated is sadly not enough, because the constitution of the country is again and again conveniently thrown in the garbage by the elected officials and there is no way to effectively fight this. Meaning that government, in general, in whatever form, tends to authoritarianism, by definition and democracy is no different.

 

[NeoTrader]

@VicBee, it's all Western propaganda. For example this: in Germany the officials, and with it the majority of the people, as well the official written and taught history says that East Germany (DDR aka GDR) was a bad country where people had no freedom and the state committed many crimes to suppress and oppress the people. In 1953 an uproar of the workers in East Berlin is since then celebrated in the West annually as a holiday to denounce East Germany, ie. their political/ideological system (West against East).

The West knows how to make propaganda, how to make an elephant from a fly.
The atrocities/crimes of West Germany itself are IMO more than 100-fold more than those of East Germany.
But the Western propaganda knows how to successfully highlight the crimes of others and blend & hide own crimes.

In reality East Germany was IMO the best Germany in history, a successful model state. Maybe not that successful like a turbo-capitalist West Germany, but it was one of the top leading countries of the Eastern block. They were at least honest.

What the fuck are you talking about? Any country that has to put up walls and shoot people to prevent them from leaving is CRAP. There is no arguing against that. Again, pure logic.

 

[earth_imperator]

What the fuck are you talking about? Any country that has to put up walls and shoot people to prevent them from leaving is CRAP. There is no arguing against that. Again, pure logic.

But they had a good reason to do b/c of the headhunters from the West...

And: the US has now created a wall too at the border to Mexico.
Israel has a wall too.
Spain too.
Greece too.
...