That's just not true.
It started as a celebration of the wedding of the crown prince and has since become a generic festival.
They serve food, snacks, wine, nonalcoholic drinks and have rides for children who are not allowed to drink beer.
Bavaria's government said in a statement that it wants to "limit the public consumption of cannabis despite the federal government's dangerous legalization law.
"A family festival like the [Oktoberfest] and cannabis consumption don't go together," he said.
Fucking lol. At a festival where people routinely get sick drunk and fall out everywhere is concerned about being family friendly? Sounds more like they're jealous people can get inebriated without drinking alcohol.
I've been in recovery for over 20 years now and one thing I've come to realize it's that .... I'd rather deal with an addict high on weed than an alcoholic that is blind drunk.
The dope head will want to be your friend and laugh uncontrollably.
The alcoholic will say you look funny and want to start a fist fight .... then piss their pants ... and cry .... and then want to fight again. And they'll do this regardless if you are 20, 60 or six years old.
At the end of the day, if we do protectionism and bar China, I can only hope we do enact more subsidies, close if not on par with China, for our own industries so that we accelerate our transition to green energy. I don't really personally care if we ban Chinese products, I just think this is a bit of cope about someone who's just... doing better economic policies, that we should also be doing, instead of crying about "unfair market competition" as if free market absolutism is necessarily good (China isn't doing enough "free market" so they're "unfair", even though we're doing the same to a slightly lesser degree).
My personal preference would be doing what Norway is doing: setting up democratic state run organizations that do green tech so that we socialize the profits we do make from such an industry. That's Norway's approach to hydropower, where they own the vast majority of it, and they're ramping up efforts towards wind energy too. They also have a state oil industry, but obviously I'm not too happy about that in the context of climate change - however, it has been incredibly economically beneficial for the people of Norway, so we should likely copy their strategy for green tech.
Responding to specific paragraphs:
During a trip to China, Yellen said the country's unfair trade practices — dumping artificially cheap products on global markets — were a threat to US businesses and jobs. Washington is considering imposing higher tariffs and closing trade loopholes if Beijing maintains its existing policy.
"Artificially cheap" is basically a loaded term for "subsidized". We do the same thing for certain industries here in Europe, there's really nothing special about it. In fact, we should probably be doing more subsidies.
"Chinese subsidies are pervasive," Rolf Langhammer, former vice president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW-Kiel), told DW. "They encompass almost all industries and are far larger than any EU or US subsidies."
Maybe we should increase our own subsidies instead? I really don't see the argument here - would we transition to a green economy too fast when climate change is a crisis in waiting? Why are cheap products a problem all of a sudden, I thought that was the primary reason we started using China to mass produce stuff on our behalf, i.e. we took advantage of their horrible working conditions that we know led to suicides and anti-jump fences. But now all of a sudden cheap stuff is a problem?
In addition to the huge subsidies, the report's authors noted, Chinese producers also benefit from preferential access to critical raw materials, forced technological transfers and less domestic red tape than their foreign competitors.
All of these sound like good things we should be doing. In fact, we are doing a little bit more of transparency (which is what "forced tech transfers" are, in less loaded terms - it's literally just making corporations share knowledge and cooperate) e.g. supply chain transparency in Europe is growing. Less domestic red tape sounds like a good thing? Norway has a similar "problem" of a government being a little bit too efficient. Obviously that's not a bad thing - maybe we should figure out why we're comparatively slow?
Langhammer noted that the West also benefits from the Chinese subsidies, as consumers can buy cars at a lower price while companies can access cheaper Chinese parts. Despite the threat from cheaper Chinese EVs, he said, some automakers were skeptical about the EU probe into Beijing's subsidies as firms such as Germany's Volkswagen and US EV leader Tesla receive them, too.
As in, Tesla has received Chinese subsidies. It has also received US and (I believe) EU subsidies too. And I'm talking about supply side subsidies, demand side subsidies like governments paying part of the price of EV cars have provided tens of billions in plenty of EU and EEA countries.
"Artificially cheap" is basically a loaded term for "subsidized".
No. Especially in this case, it is also a term for cheap manufacturing processes by ignoring environmental and social norms, including the use of forced labour. There's ample evidence for this. For example, it is the reason why European car makers were forced to quit their collaboration with a joint venture in Xinjiang.
we are doing a little bit of transparency.
That's a good idea, but it only works if and when both sides apply it and acting in good faith. However, there is, for example, no way of an independent investigation over so many alleged human rights abuses in China, even a simple market research (or shooting a photo in the public space) may lead to behind closed-door trials for espionage, ending with long jail terms. Let alone that China intentionally produces overcapacity, while at the same time protects its own domestic market. Things like these have nothing to do with transparency and collaboration.
These are just a few examples you may have (intentionally?) missed in your statement as it doesn't describe the economic reality well. Your anti-western sentiment is somewhat weird if I may say so.
Europe can do that to a very large extent domestically. We had a similar situation before 2008, when Spain and Germany offered huge subsidies to private households to boost the installations of solar roof tops, for example. Practically all of that money went into the coffers of Chinese solar tech suppliers. Europe must not make this mistake again, not in the least as many of Chinese products are produced under much lower environmental and social standards imho.
No, it started when you morons decided that bullies you deal with and even help remain in power (because they are "reasonable" and their opposition is potentially neo-Nazi, communist or something) won't ever blackmail or even directly hurt you.
And since Turkey is still their ally, I'd say they've learned nothing.
I am confident those people (and even some here) think they are very smart politicians, know what they are doing, ends justify the means and all that.
Only they are not, the bullies understand the relationship better and will benefit more from it.
A friendly reminder that EU observers would call Russian elections up to standards (when there were enough mathematical proof that they weren't and also widespread protests), and people on the Web would defend that saying that if Putin's "stability" ends, there will be communists or neo-Nazis on top.
Everyone is well aware of Erdogan (also Orban). If we went to war or put sanctions on countries at the first sign of a country being slightly fashy, that's all the world would ever be and there would be no progress. In the interests of peace we do negoitiate we some dispicable people at times in the hopes that it will change in the future. And yes, we even negotiate with terrorists... there's currently a huge amounts of negotiations with Hamas happening right now. Because you have to take a balanced view between destroying evil bastards and the cost associated with destroying the evil bastards.
It's not always clear when we should stop negotiating and start isolating a country for being a little too fashy. And sanctions are a sliding scale, and there were indeed targeted sanctions on Russia before the current war in Ukraine. Obviously this didn't dissuade Russia from taking things forward.
So what's the red line where if a country crosses it we should give them the "fuck you" treatment rather than trying to encourage them to do better through diplomatic means? Hungary and Turkey are very very far from that line. Russia? They unilaterally invaded a neighbouring democratic country unprovoked. Yeah they took a big shit on that red line while crossing it. The get the "fuck you" treatment.
Just a side note I love how you go all the way to build up an argument around Erdogan & Orban to of course end up mentioning Hamas, but you conveniently ignore to mention the biggest thug of all Netanyahu who is running the craziest fascist state of all Israel. And checking out your post history I know exactly why you didn’t mention them.
Netanyahu is an asshole. Israel is a democracy, but it has a proportional representation system which opens up scenarios where there's coalitions with extremists and since all power is in the parties it's more difficult to remove someone from power. So if Netanyahu's coalition with the extremists holds, he'll remain in power... until the next election. Not a good leader, but until the next election the world will need to negotiate with him.
Hamas is an overtly genocidal organization. They are fascist that took power the classic fascist way, win a plurality of the votes then permanently "suspend elections". They seek to restore ethnicity in the region to the way they were in the history books and are very willing to use violence to accomplish this. So Israel used the strategy of isolate them and wait for their movement to die off in time. In hindsight they should have affected a regime change immediately, but chose the less invasive approach for fascist regimes. So there was a blockade and a fence to contain them until the Palestinian people got tired of their shit and removed them from power. After 17 years of authoritarian rule, Hamas knew their support was fading and with an eminent deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia a big chunk of their funding would likely to get cut off. So on October 7, 2023 they sent their most zealous fighters into villages to murder as many people as they could to start a war, and took hostages to ensure it would be a ground war. Since they are fascists they are good at propaganda, they have used the suffering in the war they started to create international support for them. Given the success of their propaganda campaign and the international support they've gotten, the death in destruction will carry over into the next generation and the violence will persist for the foreseeable future.
There will be a ceasefire, and sooner or later Netanyahu will be removed from power. Israel will heal from the events of October 7. Though right of return is a dead issue now, Israelis won't want Palestinians moving in from Gaza for at least a generation, but in another generation any Palestinians that actually lost land in the conflicts of the past will be long gone. Of course Palestinians can get back some land in the West Bank, but it's not going to be much.
Given that movements based in hatred always result in destruction there's no good future for Palestine, whether it becomes a state or not. A very bleak future for Palestinians, but the TikTok crowd doesn't care, they got their likes and clout by using the suffering of Palestinians for their own profit the same way Hamas does. They'll move on to the next outrage within days of a ceasefire and forget all about Palestinians. Palestinians will continue to suffer under corrupt and authoritarian leaders. There's a significant probability that the kind of conflict we're seeing right now will happen again sometime in the future.
But hey you got to feel self righteous for a few months, that's what really matters, right?
Europe has donated around ~$150 billion USD (including from member states). That's almost an entire year's EU budget, over 20x the ESA's annual budget (wtf), and over 20x the EU's 6-year contribution to ITER (double wtf).
The money comes from somewhere and Europe is broke.
The US needs to stop shirking their duty, and send the military in. They are making an absolute fortune off LNG and weapons exports, they should take the responsibility to help.
EDIT: Also rich for Poland to complain about this when they are the biggest leech of EU funds in the Union. It's absurd that there are only ~9 net contributors to begin with.
Europe isn't broke, the rich countries are stingy. 150 billion is not much for an economy of 19 trillion - in fact it's not even 1%
Money is nice, it enables Ukraine to keep paying its public servants, but what they really need is modern military hardware, and lots of it. Europe alone has enough if they just delivered it. The USA with their absolutely massive military not helping at the moment is a prolem too, obviously, but we Europeans can no longer rely on them, as they're apparently insane enough to elect someone like Trump, who said many times he doesn't give a shit.
That 19 trillion isn't spendable money at all though. Learn the difference between GDP and a budget.
We're already at high inflation, high interest rates and little to no growth - the situation is extremely precarious in Europe. We could easily end up like Argentina or Turkey.
The aggressor is invading and Europe is acting like they’re not at war, again.
The Phoney War wasn't so much countries pretending that they weren't at war as it was countries preparing for war. The Axis had started arming themselves sooner; the Allies wanted to have enough time to build up.
Arguably, yes, because it seems like everyone analogous to the Allies this time around can’t agree on anything and are simultaneously having to deal with a lot of hostile propaganda/manipulation, up to and including quisling politicians in our governments (sometimes entire governments, really) and hostile foreign service agents.
Ja, es war sicherlich rational, sich 2022 auf einen lokalen Atomschlag der Russen vorzubereiten, wie die Amerikaner es mutmaßlich taten.
Was haben sie damals getan, um den Atomeinsatz abzuwenden? Sie haben Putin sehr deutlich signalisiert, dass ihn das sehr viel kosten würde.
Was tut Scholz, der dieselben Wahrheiten über die Absichten und die Rücksichtslosigkeit Putins kennt? Er macht durch Worte und (Nicht-) Taten klar, dass er niemals Grenzen setzen wird, fast egal wie weit die Russen gehen. Mehr strategische Dummheit geht einfach nicht.
Good luck actually getting Russian reinforcements and supply to Moldova. The sea, air, and land routes have Ukraine in the way. They aren’t going to let Russian troops freely move.
Side note: great job further alienating progressives and people who are no longer willing to give Israel a free pass on the fact that they’re administering an apartheid state, Biden. Really hoping this isn’t the deciding point in the elections next year, but it very well could be.
dw.com
Heiß