CDU leadership election

[G-Man]

The FDP and the Greens know that a coalition with the SPD is the only way they can go. Turning Jamaica would expose them as opportunists who self-aggrandise in disregard of the public mandate. The public wants a SPD-led coalition, according to surveys by more than 50%. The election results, with the CDU's losses and the SPD's gain, were an endorsement for Scholz and a clear rejection of Laschet. Going into a coalition led by Laschet, or worse by somebody who didn't stand for the chancellorship, would damage the (perceived) integrity of both parties, and the Greens more than the FDP.

Everybody knows that. The SPD knows it, and it doesn't look like it is intimidated by the threat of Jamaica. So the present talks are a charade, which Laschet might be the last guy to mistake for the real thing.

[ursus arctos]

Very much so

And Bild may well be the last outlet to try to make it a thing

[Discordant Resonance]

The SPD, FDP and Grüne have now agreed to formally open coalition talks, with a €12 per hour minimum wage, votes at 16, and phasing out of coal by 2030 on the preliminary agenda.

[treibeis]

The SPD, FDP and Grüne have now agreed to formally open coalition talks, with a €12 per hour minimum wage, votes at 16, and phasing out of coal by 2030 on the preliminary agenda.

I could go off on the minimum wage all day. Very few of the people who determine it have ever worked in the private sector.

I pay more than the minimum wage, and it's more than I get per hour. Yes, my fault.

[Etienne]

What's your argument against it?

[ursus arctos]

Not directly relevant, but still seismic news in Germany

https://twitter.com/andrew_marshall/status/1450138063758364677?s=21

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Der Medienmanager habe Privates und Berufliches nicht klar getrennt, hieß es zur Begründung.

That needs to go in my collection of great euphemisms.

[Discordant Resonance]

And after the Greens EGM vote to approve negotiations yesterday, the FDP have done the same today.

[ad hoc]

Axel Springer recently bought Politico and have announced that every journalist must be pro Israel. Sometimes there used to be good pieces in Politico. But I won't be reading that kind of racist bollocks now

[ursus arctos]

Here's a Haaretz piece on that, which Springer have been characteristically evasive about since it came out

[https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1449825289857548293?s=21

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

what do they mean by free market economy, because that means radically different things in different countries.

[ursus arctos]

They mean an economy that is good for Axel Springer's corporate interests, as has generally been the case in their home country given the deep fear of Bild among the German political establishment.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well that doesn't sound sinister or terrifyingly open ended at all.

[ursus arctos]

The current CEO compared Merkel's COVID policy to life under the DDR

They aren't nice people and never have been, which is part of how they became so fabulously wealthy

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

There are times when contemplating the assorted sociopatic wealthy people who wield such power over us, which they use to bring about things that are bad for society at large, but good for them in particular, that mass murder does seem like the sensible way out. The only problem is that we've seen where thinking like that has got us, and it seems to be quite difficult to put that mass murder genie back in the bottle.

[ursus arctos]

Funny that you mention sociopaths

Mr. Springer, who died in 1985, also had a personal life that might be called colorful. His third wife had previously been married to his next-door neighbor. His fourth wife was the next-door neighbor’s second wife. His fifth wife, Friede Springer, had been the family’s nanny. When he left the company to her upon his death, she surprised her many doubters by emerging as a force in her own right. She is now the vice chairwoman of Axel Springer’s supervisory board.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

My good god.

[treibeis]

What's your argument against it?

I don't argue against the minimum wage. I argue that everybody should get the same. Everybody who goes to work should get, I don't know, 25 euros an hour.

Macroeconomically, that would work. The fuckers who want to tell other people what to do would still be the fuckers who tell other people what to do. They like it, regardless of the pay. The people who are told what to do would accept it if they know that the "bosses" are getting the same money

[Discordant Resonance]

Rot-Grüne potential in Schleswig-Holstein:

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1452987903785713671

[G-Man]

So the Greens are taking CDU votes in S-H. Do the CDU voters there identify with Habeck as one of theirs? Well, I do as well.

[Discordant Resonance]

[ursus arctos]

None of the above running away with the polling for next CDU leader

https://twitter.com/wahlen_de/status/1460696795659571204?s=21

[G-Man]

Merz, the Mr Burns of German politics, would be unelectable in a general election. I hope.

[ursus arctos]

So it's Scholz and a Traffic Light, as we all knew it would be immediately after the election.

Some details of the coalition programme

https://twitter.com/jeremycliffe/status/1463512166716383236?s=21

[Sheep]

Apparently, they are also planning to abolish the prohibition on promoting abortions, which made it impossible for caregivers to properly inform their patients.

Raising the minimum wage, closing coal plants earlier, investing in renewable energy, building substantially more housing of which a substantial portion will be social housing, this all looks very impressive actually.