It’s not only a political struggle. Working conditions are tremendously better in Europe, Environmental Protection as well. Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment - China neither cares nor has any other incentives to actually do this properly, which is exactly why they are so cheap. Theres also the issue of poor quality, that if you’re manufacturing something that can have a significant impact on the environment, it should “count” and not be waste 10 years later.

Not only that, China’s subsidies are utterly unfair.

Destroying the environment in one part of the world to “save” a different one due to climate change is just ridiculously stupid and simple minded.

Those controllers are fortunately not what TSMC makes.

I listened to Habecks musings quite often and I pray he’s not going to be Chancellor.

No, I’m not, but the security of Europe is more important than social issues. Apart from that…the Greens have betrayed themselves. https://netzpolitik.org/2024/foto-nachruf-auf-gruene-und-fdp-sie-waren-buergerrechtsparteien/

Oh, believe me…we have that manufacturing capabilities. I live near where parts of Taurus are made… It’s just that there’s no “demand” and the bundeswehr doesn’t have enough money to just order them to stockpile.

That’s actually my reasoning voting for him…Kleineres Übel…and let’s be honest, Scholz never was Chancellor material, Habeck still needs more time and I don’t think he’s got enough support from the greens “realoflügel” to have his back and on top of that, the greens do not have enough support to “make” Chancellor. I hate Merz’ s guts, but unless the SPD finds a different candidate (Pistorius, anyone…? I’d vote in a heartbeat for him and I despise the SPD)…Merz is it, even with the risk of an Afd involvement. So if he sells his mother for Taurus in Ukraine and punish Putins utter madness once and for all…so be it.

Do not forget, the Germans didn’t have Weapons at that time AND there was way less to actually organize - you can fight this! And do not let people tell you, Germans just did go with it.

Minus the fact that most Germans did not have weapons in the Weimarer Republic

Danke, der kommunalwiki Link bzw die Übersicht ist besonders interessant…wusste ich nicht, I stand corrected!

which his party is working with more and more on local and state level.

Please proof that statement. The CDU in Saxony spoke with the AfD, but that’s it.

After 50 Billion in various loans for Ukraine that are shouldered in a big part by Germany…4 Million less per year are “pointless” in lieu of Ukraine getting direct and local production of ammunition and missiles…

So, those 40k North Korean are not going to see the new year? That’s…imagine some catastrophy with 40k deaths…fuck me.

Where has Germany said that? If we are going to have elections in January, it’s highly likely Merz will be chancellor and while I do not agree with the CDU on social and economic issues, rest assured, Ukraine will have Taurus by the end of March and the full permission to use it as they see fit for the war effort.

That’s a valid point, but i think it’s mute. There are pretty much two options, soviet, planned economic style or further open capitalism. The U.S. doesn’t have all resources and the world moves on without the U.S. if it has to. Not only that: Most of the innovation comes from progressive states. If those people just pack up and go somewhere else, things are looking rather bleak for increasing trade. So if there’s nobody to be able to pay for it and nobody to design it…things aren’t going to increase anything, they are going to decrease “all around”.

I mean, “change” per se isn’t necessarily something bad. Meaning, stuff needs to last longer (again) in those cases. Planned Obsolescence is a real thing, that’s however only economical as long as raw materials are relatively cheap. But it would be nice if companies just did that change, instead of being forced in to it…

Short term, though, would be similar to a collapse of civilization.

Would it? Civilization doesn’t depend on bleeding edge high tech. Sure, it depends on tech, but look around who’s making ICs or basic processors that are in machine control panels and all the millions of appliances. AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom do the “heavy lifting” in terms of monetary value, but in overall quantity? Samsung, SK Hynix, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, Sony, Renesas and NXP are the ones that make the world go round. Infineon is German, NXP is Dutch, Renesas is Japanese, STMicroelectronics is Swiss. The thing that’s really going to hurt is Foxconn, but they are probably global enough to withstand that. There’s also many, many more local players. BOSCH for example has very high capacities for everything up to 80 Nanometers (Pentium 3/4, Athlon 64…)

Civilization would crack, sure - but i don’t think it would collapse. Society on the other hand…that’s a different paper.

Meh. The U.S. probably are also going to be one of the most affected and if Trump enacts all his economic ideas, the U.S. Economy will tank HARD, meaning the contribution to climate change will shrink regardless.

US military power already far exceeds that of every other country on Earth.

That isn’t entirely true. Looking at soldier numbers in general, NATO without the U.S. has ~ 1.2 Million active, the U.S. as a whole over all branches has roughly 1.4 Million - that’s however including National Guard. Without that, it’s 1.1 Million. Most NATO countries however do reserves different, Germany alone has 930k in Reserves (meaning, they either had military training or are receiving it on a rotational basis), the U.S. has ~ 300k. All of that combined gives Europe roughly 2.5 Million Soldiers that can be put in to service very fast. Since organizational structures are very similar on all accounts, if need be, that would happen fast. Remember, the EU also has very similar guarantees as NATO, meaning if one is attacked, the others vowed to help. If Europe actually tried with their military spending, we’d be able to outspend the U.S. by a lot - easily. Keep in mind…we’re (=Europe) supplying Ukraine with more than the U.S. does, and most of our arms industry is still not even trying. Airbus, Rheinmetall, BAE, KMW, Navantia, Safran, ThyssenKrupp…they are all “trotting along” right now. Except Nuclear Threats, the U.S. hasn’t got much to “best” others, IF Europe actually kicks in to gear (granted, that all needs the European Union not to crumble as well…) even technology wise the U.S. isn’t that “overwhelming”. Look up U33 and U32 - they both sank entire U.S. Carrier Groups in many simulations regularly - they still do. Hell, they even put two Los-Angeles class U-Boats to shame, they sunk them too. Most of the European U-Boats are pretty similar on that aspect as well, the Italians actually have the same and the French Triomphant-class isn’t that bad either.

Germany’s “collapse” of a Coalition is not necessarily something unprecedent. It has happened a few times and is also a sign for a very healthy democracy. In Germany, most of the governing power comes from ministries and state secretaries - those do not change with the collapse of a coalition. Our system is more robust than that of the U.S. against those kinds of issues (it isn’t when the truth just get’s thrown out of the window) - however, i also believe that the U.S. System is more robust than most of you give it credit.

And i agree, it’s unfair, but as an educated immigrant, actually wanting to work and putting the effort in to learn the language and be considerate of the culture - you’ll be fine, even with more right leaning governments throughout Europe.

And now do some basic Google Foo and find out what is manufactured in Taiwan. If China gets it’s way, because Trump thinks Xi is cool and he’s a good guy, China will just waltz in - TSMC, ASML and Trumpf have some safeguards in place as far as I know to destroy anything valuable. So while you might want to buy shit, you can’t because the Cheeto and his cronies collapsed it.

A lot less though. Keep in mind, Ukraine help is also a big plus in all the financial books, even though it looks like they just “get the money”…