EU discussion / and other European countries

[RedC]

It's complicated, here's the UK perspective. Sales are generally recognised in the tax jurisdiction of the sales operation. Historically that has meant that big US corps would have paid CT in the UK on the sale of their products because people would have often physically gone to a shop/ordered it on a phone and the sales operation was in the UK. But now with online sales the game has changed and it's meant that these giants like Amazon can base their sales operations in tax jurisdictions that have lower CT rates whilst still essentially operating in the UK. They need a EU base to operate within the EU so they will generally choose Ireland because it's got a low tax rate and has a decent legal system. The UK has tried to combat this by introducing a complicated tax called Diverted Profits Tax (Google tax) for large corporates with the aim of clawing back a proportion of the lost revenue with limited success.

Essentially you have big giants undercutting and destroying smaller businesses (who actually pay UK tax) because they pay less tax.

Any European company would likely just do the same thing though, they aren't going to keep sales going through their origin country if they can pay less tax through Ireland.

 

[P-Ro]

Any European company would likely just do the same thing though, they aren't going to keep sales going through their origin country if they can pay less tax through Ireland.

Most multinational corporates don't abandon their homeland.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]

 

[That_Bloke]

I lived for seven years in Thuringia, this always was going to happen.

The AfD has its strongest support in East Germany. Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are the most fertile breeding grounds and always were one weak federal government away from an AfD win.

 

[VorZakone]

I lived for seven years in Thuringia, this always was going to happen. The AfD has its strongest support in East Germany. Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are the most fertile breeding grounds.

Was there anything noticeable about day-to-day life in Thuringia that made you feel this was always gonna happen?

 

[HTG]

Was there anything noticeable about day-to-day life in Thuringia that made you feel this was always gonna happen?

All the nazis might have tipped them off.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[That_Bloke]

Was there anything noticeable about day-to-day life in Thuringia that made you feel this was always gonna happen?

I was there from 2006 to 2013 before I moved to Cologne. I was in Weimar where I studied architecture at the Bauhaus University and know Jena and Erfurt, both major university cities in Thuringia, quite well.

Ironically, things there somewhat never really changed there since the end of the Weimarer Republik. Multi-cultural islands harboring tolerance and brilliant, unorthodox ideas and widened horizons but completely surrounded by an ocean of staunch conservatism, firmly leaning on the (far) right.

Neo-Nazis weren't an uncommon thing even if most of them kept quiet while in town. They beat a Chinese student to death a month or two before I started studying there. To be fair, there always was a strong mobilisation against Neo-Nazis everytime they organized a demo, especially on May 1st. I've been witness, and sometimes participant, to quite a few street fights between the far-left, known as AntiFa, and the far-right.

East Germany is far, far less open than its Western counter-part. It had the sad privilege of enduring two of the most horrible dictatures for decades in succession, the Nazi one in the 30's and 40's immediately followed by the Communist's till the end of the 80's. It durably affected the East-german society, making it untrusting and much less receptive to any influx of foreigners, especially when not from a european/christian background, let alone a muslim one. Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt have been plagued with far-right issues since the fall of the Wall in 1989. It wasn't really talked about and mostly brushed under the carpet, but for those who've been there, the reality is more than obvious.

Despite the reunification and the colossal effort and masses of money injected by the German Federal Government, to bring the Eastern part up to speed (we still pay a "solidarity tax" in the West), social and economic discrepancies between East and West Germany still persist to this day. Salaries and job perspectives are infinitely better on the west side and 60 years of dictatorship inevitably left their mark.

The AfD just channeled the whole resentment which already was present for decades and gave it a fresh, presentable coat of paint... and a scapegoat everyone can shoot at without serious consequences.

 

[VorZakone]

I was there from 2006 to 2013 before I moved to Cologne. I was in Weimar where I studied architecture at the Bauhaus University and know Jena and Erfurt, both major university cities in Thuringia, quite well.

Ironically, things there somewhat never really changed there since the end of the Weimarer Republik. Multi-cultural islands harboring tolerance and brilliant, unorthodox ideas and widened horizons but completely surrounded by an ocean of staunch conservatism, firmly leaning on the (far) right.

Neo-Nazis weren't an uncommon thing even if most of them kept quiet while in town. They beat a Chinese student to death a month or two before I started studying there. To be fair, there always a strong mobilisation against Neo-Nazis everytime they organized a demo, especially on the May 1st. I've been witness, and sometimes participant, to quite a few street fights between the far-left, known as AntiFa, and the far-right.

East Germany is still far, far less open than its Western counter-part. It had the sad privilege of successively enduring two of the most horrible dictatures for decades, the Nazi one in the 30's and 40's immediately followed by the Communist's till the end of the 80's. It durably affected the East-german society, making it untrusting and far less receptive to any influx of foreigners, especially when not from a christian background, let alone a muslim one. Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt have been plagued with far-right issues since the the fall of the Wall in 1989. It wasn't really talked about and mostly brushed under the carpet but for those who've been there, the reality is more than obvious.

Despite the reunification and the colossal effort and masses of money injected by the German Federal Government to this day to bring the Eastern part up to speed (we still pay a "solidarity tax" in the West), social and economic discrepancies between East and West Germany still persist to this day. Salaries and job perspectives are infinitely better on the west side and 60 years of dictatorship inevitably left their mark.

The AfD just channeled the whole resentment which already was present for decades and gave it a fresh, presentable coat of paint.

Thanks!

 

[Sweet Square]

 

[G3079]

Was there anything noticeable about day-to-day life in Thuringia that made you feel this was always gonna happen?

As someone who grew up in Thuringia, but hasn't lived there since 2005, I am certainly not surprised either.
Eastern Germany, especially Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, have always had way more open arms for rightwing and populist tendencies than the rest of the republic.

Personally, I am too young to remember much from the fall of the iron curtain, but in my family and many older people I know, that event left lasting traumata. Initially, the reaction was positive of course, but in the months and years following the reunification, disappointment and anger set in. Some of it came with the base of systems, like the agricultural sector in the largely very rural Thuringia suddenly having to compete on a world market rather than having a predictable, largely isolated domestic market. But a lot of the problems were also created by a very pro-west prejudiced and overly hasty integration of the systems. Many things that were good in the east were shut down and abolished without question just because they came from the east, and must thus be bad. Child daycare for example was gutted, preschool daycares were closed en masse and the Kindergarten educators fired, Hort programs in schools that provided daycare for schoolchildren outside of regular class times were shut down, Polyclinics (medical centers where doctors of many different specialisations are gathered without forming a unified hospital) were dismantled. And so on. Many of those are things that are now getting painstakingly built up again.

But most importantly, and what many east Germans still remember and resent as a massive backstab, was the dismantling of huge parts of east German industry. With the reunification, the west German government did not want to take over the thousands of state-owned east German companies and enterprises. So it shunted them off into the Treuhandanstalt, which was tasked to privatise those and, supposedly, make them fit for and integrate them into the western captitalist market. In reality however, what the Treuhand did was butcher the east German industry and selling them out to western companies for cheap, often just symbolic sums. For example, my grandmother at the time was department head of what would today be called the IT department of a successful stateowned company. According to her, they were absolutely fit for the western market, their products equal or even superior. But what happened was that a western company bought them for pennies. The production was robbed of all usable machines. The modern data center they had built just shortly before the reunification was gutted, the computers shipped off to the owner's plant in west Germany, and the employees, including my grandmother, given the option to either train their west German successors who had been working with ancient punch card systems until now before being let go, or being fired here and now. Everything the owner had no use for was scrapped, even things that were still new and entirely usable. Once he had gutted the company for all he cared for he shut it down. He never had the slightest interest of continuing production, or transferring workers to his other plans. He just raided them for all he could and left them for dead.

Those stories played out by the thousands in eastern Germany, leaving its entire economic landscape devastated, millions finding themselves out of jobs with no alternatives to go to, and causing a widespread, massive resentment throughout the populace. And that resentment did not stop with the generations that experienced those things, but were inherited by the younger generations, who found themselves in an economic amd educational environment that had been gutted and is reeling to this day. Jobs are less plentiful than in the west, wages are lower, quality of life is diminished in comparison. That holds especially true for outside the cities, and again: Thuringia is mostly rural, aside from a chain of small and midsized towns along the Autobahn 4 - the largest town in Thuringia is just a bit over 200'000 inhabitants in size, roughly 10% of the state's inhabitants. Young adults left and keep leaving eastern Germany in droves to find a living elsewhere, mostly in west Germany, and those who stayed often feel left behind, without prospects, and uncared for by the government. While the population in the larger towns is by now increasing again due to a heavy trend of urbanisation, villages and small towns are increasingly losing inhabitants both to those cities and to out-of-state destinations, which leads to closing businesses, dead town centers, long drives to doctors and other specialists, and more desperation and feelings of being left behind and forgotten about, more resentment.

It is of little surprise then, that population is largely distrustful of and resenting the state that they feel backstabbed them, sold them out, and then left them out to dry. While there have been substantial investments being made in east Germany post reunifications, and there certainly are success stories to be found, those are in relatively few regions and concentrated mostly in the cities. The rural areas however are, as explained, not doing well in general. That has always led to many what we call "protest voters" in Thuringia, both on the left and the right edge of the political landscape, who just vote for anyone that isn't one of the "big western parties". Thuringia was, and to some extent still is, one of the last holdouts for Germany's biggest left party, Die Linke, which had been in the Government until this election and continues to do relatively well with 13.1% of the votes, while it struggles to reach double digits in most of the rest of Germany and not being present in the state parliament of any western non-city state at all due to not reaching 5%. The head of the Thuringian Linke party is still the most popular politician in the state, despite the federal part of his party being busy doing everything to dismantle themselves from within. That one of those efforts at self-destruction, the populist-left party of Putin-apologist Wagenknecht, managed to grab 23.6% of the votes in their first statewide election participation ever, fits the picture. Same on the rightwing part of the spectrum, where the AfD gets plenty of votes.

Sadly, many of my former countrymen have never been very bright, and populists just declaring loudly enough that "at least we aren't those parties who historically let you down!" was often enough to guarantee decent voter shares, no matter how idiotic their political agenda was, and that has only gotten worse in recent years. They want to try "something else", have anybody else in charge, a thinking of "it could only get better from where we are". It's utterly moronic, it's voting for "Leopard's eating people's faces"-parties in the belief that certainly they won't eat their faces. It's an act of desperation and stupidity, supported by massive disinformation and agitation campains in social media that gets lapped up unquestioned because it fits their prejudices and grudges.


When I lived there, it never felt certain to happen, but there was always a certain propensity to the extremes of the political spectrum. There had always been a neo nazi scene that was alive and well, but never as big and open as today, and there had always been a strong far left Antifa scene to march against them and, occasionally, literally fight them, too.
There was always a bit of casual racism in large parts of the population, but sometimes intentional, but very often born purely out of ignorance. Thuringia had, and still has, one of the lowest shares of immigrants in Germany, a bit over 8%, so the average Thuringian's exposure to foreigners is actually relatively low, and their knowledge of them marginal. Ironically foreign immigrants are a large reason that the state's population numbers have not been dwindling as badly as they could have, and in some sectors, especially the healthcare one, they are almost singlehandedly preventing the system from collapsing outright.

Overall the recent state elections leave me deeply disappointed and ashamed. Some part of me still sees Thuringia as my home, the country that I grew up in, and seeing them vote for populist shitebags like Wagenknecht and Hoecke who toss them honeyed words but don't actually give a damn about them saddens me massively.

 

[B. Munich]

But most importantly, and what many east Germans still remember and resent as a massive backstab, was the dismantling of huge parts of east German industry.

I heard that all the time when I visited the former GDR in the early 90s.
Do you honestly believe Western capitalists destroyed functional, Eastern industries just to make a point that everything was bad in the former GDR?

For example, my grandmother at the time was department head of what would today be called the IT department of a successful stateowned company.

The father of my then East German Gf said the same. I visited the region of Halle an der Saale many times. Oh boy, especially when it came to IT, the place was light years behind the west.
I understand that people working in these companies saw it differently but the most East German industries weren't fit at all to compete in a global market after 45 years of communism.
The West poured billions and billions of DM into the new states to improve and modernize the infrastructure.

Were mistakes made? Surely but the unification was such a monumental a task and challenge never accomplished before.

Those stories played out by the thousands in eastern Germany, leaving its entire economic landscape devastated, millions finding themselves out of jobs with no alternatives to go to, and causing a widespread, massive resentment throughout the populace.

These were hard times, definitely. On the other hand your former communist brother states went through to even harsher recessions and hardships.

Jobs are less plentiful than in the west, wages are lower, quality of life is diminished in comparison. That holds especially true for outside the cities, and again:

Nothing particular to the former GDR states. You also have these structural weak regions in West Germany. Or look at the US and many rural states there.
You can't expect to evaporate 40 years of communist economy and dictatorship in a few years.

It is of little surprise then, that population is largely distrustful of and resenting the state that they feel backstabbed them, sold them out, and then left them out to dry.

It only proves that parts of the population just draw the wrong conclusions. Very similar to the MAGA crowd in the US.
What is the reason Thuringia is in that bad situation? The planned economy of GDR and Russian oppression or the West, which invested billions over billions there?
Then you vote for the former SED and now the even worse BSW headed by the hardcore Marxist and Putin apologist Wagenknecht. You can't be more stupid, can you?

That has always led to many what we call "protest voters" in Thuringia, both on the left and the right edge of the political landscape, who just vote for anyone that isn't one of the "big western parties". Thuringia was, and to some extent still is, one of the last holdouts for Germany's biggest left party, Die Linke, which had been in the Government until this election and continues to do relatively well with 13.1% of the votes, while it struggles to reach double digits in most of the rest of Germany and not being present in the state parliament of any western non-city state at all due to not reaching 5%.

Not the case anymore after yesterday's election. The even more radical BSW took over most of the votes.

That one of those efforts at self-destruction,

Fully agree! Many just hit the self destruct button out of anger, frustration or rage over the established, democratic parties.
It might be understandable but it's definitely no solution and only will make things worse.

They want to try "something else", have anybody else in charge, a thinking of "it could only get better from where we are".

Wagenknecht always has been a hardcore Marxist for who the principle of supply & demand, investing in stocks, free markets, capitalism were pure evil. Worst she now is a clear proxy of Putin.
While the AfD is (allegedly) pro Germany, the BSW is pro Russia.

Thuringia had, and still has, one of the lowest shares of immigrants in Germany, a bit over 8%, so the average Thuringian's exposure to foreigners is actually relatively low, and their knowledge of them marginal.

Not that surprising, isn't it? The states in the US, in which migration is the most important topic, are the ones furthest away from the Mexican border. It's the fear mongering of the populists, which creates panic in these states as they have no real idea what migration actually means.

I think the fundamental opposition of the AfD doesn't help at all. It makes the party only stronger.
Let them into a coalition government and prove themselves. What's to lose?
If they manage to do a good job, it will be great for the country. If the feck up, the popularity of the AfD will diminish and the party will be reduced to it's 5 to 8% base of right wing voters.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]

Mario Draghi is expected to sound the alarm over the risk of the European Union’s economic decline and call for significant investments to boost its single market.

 

[HTG]

Yeah no shit. Their austerity politics need to die.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]

 

[Bepi]

Germany is sort of analogic giant in a fully digital epoch, it will not be easy for them to reconvert and keep their leading role in the EU (aka the EU is fecked without Draghi’s plan).

 

[Revan]

Draghi is absolutely right, this is an existential crisis for the EU. Fail to do this, EU will stagnate and will continue its transformation to open museum.

Unfortunately, I do not think that his plan has any chance. Also, I think 800B is not that much, it would help EU, but EU needs a self-funded Marshall plan, far more than Draghi's plan.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[11101]

Not a lot of options that I can see. Its the UK all over again.

There is a price arrogance where industry thinks people will pay a premium for homegrown goods. They will, but over time that is eroded.

Next problem, EU workers cost too much and have rights, a good thing but one which will sink them the way it sunk the UK in the 70s. China will use virtual slave labour to dominate any market they choose and funnel the money we pay them for it to ensnare other regions with belt and road.

We help them out with daft targets around emissions and traceability that play into their hands and further cripple our own industries.

Then there is Merkel who shackled us to her best friend Putin and his ever more expensive gas supply turning the screw that final few percent.

 

[Revan]

Not a lot of options that I can see. Its the UK all over again.

There is a price arrogance where industry thinks people will pay a premium for homegrown goods. They will, but over time that is eroded.

Next problem, EU workers cost too much and have rights, a good thing but one which will sink them the way it sunk the UK in the 70s. China will use virtual slave labour to dominate any market they choose and funnel the money we pay them for it to ensnare other regions with belt and road.

We help them out with daft targets around emissions and traceability that play into their hands and further cripple our own industries.

Then there is Merkel who shackled us to her best friend Putin and his ever more expensive gas supply turning the screw that final few percent.

Compared to China, sure? Compared to UK, EU workers, especially those in white collar jobs cost a pittance.

 

[11101]

Compared to China, sure? Compared to UK, EU workers, especially those in white collar jobs cost a pittance.

Yeah, but it's not the UK they're competing against.

 

[Revan]

Yeah, but it's not the UK they're competing against.

Sorry, was a typo compared to the US.

Salaries in EU for those professions are actually comparable to the UK, but far below the US.

 

[That_Bloke]

He's absolutely right.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[Redplane]

He's absolutely right.

I don't want them to change Europe. I like that it feels behind the times. Makes it more of an adventurous vacation.

 

[11101]

Sorry, was a typo compared to the US.

Salaries in EU for those professions are actually comparable to the UK, but far below the US.

I think they're a little below in my experience, but yeah they are close.

The US is going in the same direction too but they've managed to stave it off with rampant domestic consumerism and relaxed regulations, both around employee rights and supporting innovation. Europe's decline will be slow and gradual, America's when it happens will be abrupt and spectacular.

 

[Revan]

I think they're a little below in my experience, but yeah they are close.

The US is going in the same direction too but they've managed to stave it off with rampant domestic consumerism and relaxed regulations, both around employee rights and supporting innovation. Europe's decline will be slow and gradual, America's when it happens will be abrupt and spectacular.

I am not sure for the US. Tech is pretty much still almost exclusively US based. Global finance is pretty much decided by the US. New technologies such as AI again are almost completely US-based. Innovation still happens in the US. So I think they are far better stationed than the EU.

 

[That_Bloke]

I don't want them to change Europe. I like that it feels behind the times. Makes it more of an adventurous vacation.

Yeah, no.

Nostalgia is only good when you got one glas of wine too many and tearingly reminisce about the good old times.

Europe is in danger of becoming a relic of the past. Everything that's good about it is going under.

 

[11101]

I am not sure for the US. Tech is pretty much still almost exclusively US based. Global finance is pretty much decided by the US. New technologies such as AI again are almost completely US-based. Innovation still happens in the US. So I think they are far better stationed than the EU.

I don't think it's happening any time soon but think about much of what you're saying there, it's domestic or at best Western. US banks financing US tech selling to US industry. China is playing a longer game and is much better positioned in emerging markets that one day will become developed.

 

[VorZakone]

 

[nickm]

He's absolutely right.

He is right. I will not forget the ridiculous crowing from regulators when they announced the AI regulations, as if they'd accomplished something useful.

Thing is, I don't know how it can change. Barnier says it now, it'll take 5 years for anyone to agree and another 10 years to get it thru the EU. By then China will have locked everyone out of solar and killed the EUs car industry and US AI technology will be running everything.

 

[africanspur]

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]

Breton resigns. He was the guy acting tough against Musk on Twitter, no?

 

[VorZakone]

 

[VorZakone]