Of course, you can’t fix your economic problems if your political leaders are insane. What can one really say about any of this. The title is “Germany’s Green Nightmare”. It is an article that can only be described as surreal. Read it for yourself but while you do, keep the following in mind as you try to work out how we have entered the world we have entered. The story is about Germany.
New federal elections are scheduled by the end of 2013, and in view of the overwhelming popularity of ‘renewable’ ideology in the populace, all political parties that have chances to form the next government are intensely committed to continue their vigorous support for the ongoing ‘energy transition’.
Sadly the Germans have history with insane political leaders.It seems that the same genetic disposition still prevails.
Lew
17 Feb 13 at 10:50 am
The socialists won’t see this as a big deal. The average German family gets about 40k per year and about 50% of this is taken and redistributed already, whats another 1.4k?
They don’t understand that energy is *everything*. There are only natural resources and energy put into them to turn them into useful products. If they double the price of energy, they will think it only doubles the power bill, then they will be surprised when the price of everything doubles. Its not a stretch to say that actual production could decline by 50% if they actually achieved their goal.
mundi
17 Feb 13 at 11:01 am
Wasn’t in the last 5 years or so that Germany was to shutdown its nuclear power plants?
Mike of Marion
17 Feb 13 at 11:02 am
When the Germans parked their tanks and jet fighters in ’45, and got into their BMWs and Porsches, they collectively said “That was a bad idea. From now on, no more lunatics in charge, ja?”
Now they’ve done it again.
Winston SMITH
17 Feb 13 at 11:05 am
The Germans ought to vote for the FDP, who oppose/d the phase out of nuclear power.
Germany governed by libertarians? It’s possible, given they got 14% of the vote last time and how pissed off Germans would be about this Green power scamola.
.
17 Feb 13 at 11:09 am
Maybe we could send them Wayne Swan (“World’s Greatest Treasurer!”), Christine Milne and Sarah Halfwit-Bung.
That would help.
Surely!
Up The Workers!
17 Feb 13 at 11:26 am
Don’t be daffy. The three great loves in a German’s life are:
1. Faeces.
2. Sausage.
3. Authority.
They are quite similar to Australians in this regard although our sausages are inferior.
Infidel Tiger
17 Feb 13 at 11:42 am
…and our beer is no where near as good as theirs.
Token
17 Feb 13 at 11:43 am
Blah blah Hitler blah blah. Even that idiot would not have fallen for this greenie bullshit.
Whalehunt Fun
17 Feb 13 at 12:15 pm
I’m not so sure. Apart from a fanatical desire to build great roads, Hitler and the Greens are peas in a pod.
Infidel tiger
17 Feb 13 at 12:20 pm
This article is best read while considering the final portion of the following article.
Paul
17 Feb 13 at 12:28 pm
No mate, we’re stupidier than the Germans; per capita we are spending more on fucking ‘green’ energy than them and they don’t have the fossil and nuclear resources we have.
Stop the Green Carnage.
cohenite
17 Feb 13 at 1:17 pm
Luckily the Germans are now building more coal fire stations and are starting to use Nuclear from France.
Andrew
17 Feb 13 at 1:22 pm
There should be a link or at least a reference in the article to the 600,000 households without electricity.
Doomist headline with an article full of projections… sounds like CAGW.
James X Leftie
17 Feb 13 at 2:03 pm
Erm… Hitler WAS a greenie.
Mk50 of Brisbane
17 Feb 13 at 2:25 pm
What, all 600,000 of them? What do you want, fucking names and addresses?
cohenite
17 Feb 13 at 3:11 pm
German population 2012 = 82 million
600,000 without electricity = 0.73%
South Australian population = 1.65 million
10,000 defaulted on electricity bills = 0.6%
I would suggest that the total Australian figure is simmilar.
Splatacrobat
17 Feb 13 at 3:31 pm
How about you reference everyone in Germany able to still pay their bills?
.
17 Feb 13 at 4:00 pm
Great German products are logically more expensive than inadequate rubbish alternatives:
The beer, many brewers still adhere to the old purity laws though the EU says they don’t have to.
The HK416/417, should immediately replace the Stoner designed M16 derivatives in US service. Piston operated where the raw gas gets no where near the bolt, nil contamination jams. (or melted plastic in the case of the even more disastrous Steyr)
Zeiss binos, have saved at least one life in my direct experience, where other top of the line Asian binos could not discriminate.
The Germans should patent the phrase “You get what you pay for”.
The media has engineered middle class Germany into believing tinker bell is more important than wealth creation….hee, hee….it won’t last.
Alfonso
17 Feb 13 at 4:53 pm
Sorry Alfonso, but you’re wrong.
Fortunately, you are wrong – unless you’re Australian.
The Mercedes CLA will retail in the USA for a touch under 30k.
Here, we will pay at least 55k.
The RRP on a new base model Ford Falcon is about 37k.
.
17 Feb 13 at 5:32 pm
I assume the price comparisons have our taxes taken off the German cars in comparison?
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 5:52 pm
Oh, bleep.
Thankfully we’re referring here to beer purity laws, rather than racial purity laws…
Rabz
17 Feb 13 at 5:53 pm
Dunno about entry level cheapo 55k Mercs…..designed to be cheap, plus an import tax plus born to rule dealer mark up problem perhaps?
Top of the line / middle level Mercs are relatively expensive whatever the market, remember half of Europe’s taxis are clapped out diesel Mercs that you don’t want to have ever owned.
You are talking basic Merc not the quality marque.
See Zeiss, Heckler and Koch, Leica, BMW ( who also have low rent entry, in reality unconnected to their top quality operation)
Alfonso
17 Feb 13 at 5:58 pm
Louis I’m quoting the US RPP for the Mercedes CLA and the Australian RPP for the Ford Falcon.
The ACCC with its pre 20th century economic regulatory agenda is a threat to prosperity – it has a mandate to seek out and punish firms with economies of scale. Vertical integration is bad! Apparently.
.
17 Feb 13 at 6:01 pm
“beer purity laws”….well, chemically laden plastic beers are standard from most mega Aust breweries….you can do better….but it’s not compulsory.
Alfonso
17 Feb 13 at 6:03 pm
Bust ACCC back to complaints only, and it has to present a compelling case privately before it is permitted to act. And if a case fails the person who started it gets fired.
wreckage
17 Feb 13 at 6:06 pm
Only possible with the tariffs and parallel import rules.
.
17 Feb 13 at 6:06 pm
Yea Alfonso,
There’s no fucking reason in the world we ought to be paying those sorts of prices for German cars/products.
Think about this..A beamer 6 series was around 250K when the aussie was around 60 cents to the US and around 2,90 to the Euro.
The same car is the same price now. Those fuckers are taking us for a ride (no pun intended).
Or take the example of a US stove- A Viking. This fucker was 11,000 bucks here about decade ago and it retailed for around 4K in the US. The Aussie was around 55 cents.
You ought to be buying it for less than 3k here now, bit it’s the same price.
You can’t import it from the US because it requires special authorization to be attached to the mains. We’re getting absolutely hosed here in Oz.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 6:07 pm
Total insanity.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 6:15 pm
JC… correct.
If you be paying more than Germany domestic punters plus shipping and reasonable dealer mark up in Aust….talk to Julia and Tony.
And if you can’t bypass those dealers via private import, talk to Julia and Tony.
The Germans are innocent.
The US has many items not for net sale to Aust to protect those little Aussie battler “cost plus” agent arsehole rip off retailers….but there’s always a way…I find.
Alfonso
17 Feb 13 at 6:20 pm
We pay far too much for pretty much any quality durable good in Australia, cars especially. It’s absolutely criminal how much we protect those welfare queens in the local car industry.
tbh
17 Feb 13 at 6:23 pm
Agorism is a beautiful thing, Alfonso.
Yes they are. The firms are pulling out. The unions are ripping off every Australian man, woman and child.
.
17 Feb 13 at 6:25 pm
Good rules for the parole board too.
jupes
17 Feb 13 at 6:26 pm
I posted this on the open forum yesterday, but here is the topic again!
How much are mercedes Benz ripping off australians?
I can give you the answer : a lot.
Yet another thing that Australians have been brainwashed into believing : new cars are expensive. No, we’ve had a protected market since ww2 and all the manufacturers are taking advantage.
brc
17 Feb 13 at 7:40 pm
I don’t think it is Mercedes ripping us off.
A FPV sells for nearly as much as a base model BMW or Audi.
.
17 Feb 13 at 7:43 pm
Well I guess they are ripping us off, actually.
.
17 Feb 13 at 7:45 pm
I wonder how much ADR compliance adds to the price of an imported vehicle?
I have never understood why huge tail lights on heavy Jap 4WD’s (‘cruisrs etc) about 10-15 years ago had to be disconnected and pissy little tail lights, cut into the rear bumper(!), required in their place.
Vandalism and madness. But at least it was expensive.
Steve of Ferny Hills
17 Feb 13 at 8:01 pm
SFA – most ADRs are just subsets of Euro standards. Especially in the engine.
Most modern cars can be made ADR compliant by fitting the idiotic child restraint anchors, which are high tech bolts screwed into steel.
It’s illegal to use the far superior ISOFIX system developed and standard in Europe.
It’s not just MB – every single manufacturer selling cars in Australia are fleecing the public, compared to the other countries they sell in. This is not the LCT, the GST or import duties. It is a protected market where you are not allowed to buy a car anywhere else but through an Australia dealer.
A comparison is if Australia Post opened packages and confiscated every book and CD that was bought from overseas. The public would quite rightly be outraged, even though they would technically be enforcing the restrictions on parallel imports. It’s the same thing with vehicles, but Australians are brainwashed into thinking cars just cost more in Australia, well, because.
Rubbish! it could be changed immediately. Pass a law harmonising car imports with motorbikes, boats, tvs- just about everything else that you’re allowed to personally import if you want.
I wonder how long MB would continue overcharge $17k on a C-Class when people could fly themselves to London, buy one at a dealer there, ship it home and still be $10k in front. When they got to an S-Class, and you were being overcharged by $70k, then you’d fly the entire family business class, stay for a week, drive your new car to Paris for the fun of it, and still be in front.
Note these figures are ex-taxes. That is how much different the base car, before taxes is between Australia and the UK. And the UK gets overcharged compared to the USA.
We’re getting fleeced rotten here people, and nobody seems to care.
brc
17 Feb 13 at 9:04 pm
Bullshit. They price to local conditions and what they think they can get away with.
Look, you’re right we should talk to the Slapper and Tony, but the only reason to do so is to allow private importing.
That would be the way to crack heads. However the chances of that happening while we’re still trying to “protect’ the domestic industry is about zilch.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 9:08 pm
No, I care a bloody lot!
.
17 Feb 13 at 9:10 pm
In terms of Toyota Landcruisers the whole Australian market is 0.1% of the world market, so I was told by a dealer up north, and that Japan has to schedule in specific runs to produce Aussie spec cars. We are talking mass production and the ozzie market is not a mass market operation for the Germans, too few cars sold.
If we drove on the RH side, that would cut tooling down heaps, since they would not need to make RH and LH drive cars. If our ADR’s were ditched and equal to EU standards, cheaper again.
Jap cars are cheaper because they don’t need to mirror image them for here, just a couple of expensive alterations to the production lines to meet ADR.
It’s economics 101.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 9:21 pm
Most Germans like to be led and ordered what to do by their government. They complain about the 50% odd tax rate but then would not do without all the government ‘services’ and various enviro-diktats like this. They’ve been conditioned to see it as desirable.
Chris M
17 Feb 13 at 9:22 pm
It’s fucking criminal what we’re made to pay here.
You can pick up a 750 beamer for US$ 104,000 in the US
Over here 300K
Or take the shitty range Rover that every Toorak or Sydney Eastern burbs blond women drives. (Hate the car, but love the gals driving these things for the most part. They’re really stuck up too, pun intended).
US price. about 125K
Here $202 K and that’s even though they get in as trucks missing some of the taxes.
We’re ape raped in every possible way
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 9:22 pm
louis
It’s bullshit. Don;’t believe a word they say. The cost of right hand drive is small potatoes.
They bullshit about the runs as there are plenty of markets with left hand drive. China is one example now.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 9:24 pm
Çhinese LH ? Hmmm, did not know that, I thought Rickshaws had a middle drive, not RH or LH. Ahem.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 9:32 pm
Mainland China and Taiwan are right Honkers is left.
sdfc
17 Feb 13 at 9:38 pm
Don’t think there is an argument either way, the cost differential would be fairly low if the entire world shifted to LHD:
From Encyclopaedia Britannica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg
.
17 Feb 13 at 9:47 pm
Indeed, you “should” be able to import privately from whatever market you like.
With NZ$1.27 v AU$1.00 in 1999…
I bought my first HiLux Dual cab 3.0 L diesel 4wd in NZ for AU$33k…..the list price at the time in Aust was AU$42k, in NZ also NZ$42k…..whatever the punters can afford seemed to be the mentality.
Knowing I was an Aussie, the princess at Lower Hutt Toyota wanted me to sign a contract that guaranteed I would not export the vehicle to Aust….they were obviously worried about a bit of arbitrage publicity.
That ultimatum was dropped when he had to decide whether he wanted the money or his thumb to suck.
Pooftas.
Alfonso
17 Feb 13 at 9:48 pm
I read somewhere once that it was Napoleon that forced Europe onto the right.
sdfc
17 Feb 13 at 9:49 pm
Ours are right-hand drive cars; the US and Europe are left-hand drive vehicles.
We drive on the left, they drive on the right.
JamesK
17 Feb 13 at 9:52 pm
Oh shit, I meant.
hey bullshit about the runs as there are plenty of markets with right hand drive.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 9:53 pm
Everyone but James knew what you meant JC.
sdfc
17 Feb 13 at 9:57 pm
This is completely not true. Why are you making excuses for these people?
On modern production lines LHD and RHD are made on the same line at the same time. I have visited the BMW factory in Munich and 3 series roll off the line there, each one different in all the options, one after the other destined for all parts of the world. Robots mostly put them together, and they don’t care which side the steering wheel goes on.
To further poke holes in that theory, remember Holden is about to start selling Commodores in the US, in LHD, for $11k cheaper than we will be able to buy the same car.
brc
17 Feb 13 at 10:49 pm
On the local retailers, the word on the street is that they get the same margins to operate as dealers in the US. The fat is all hidden in the factory invoice price to Australian dealers.
brc
17 Feb 13 at 10:50 pm
Added to that, a lot of German cars are made in South Africa, where they also drive on the left hand side of the road.
tbh
17 Feb 13 at 10:55 pm
That’s very true. You never see a minger driving a Rangie.
66.1% of the world is right hand drive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic
Infidel Tiger
17 Feb 13 at 10:56 pm
I believe that many ‘small’ beemers and mercs sold here are assembled in Port Elizabeth RSA.
Steve of Ferny Hills
17 Feb 13 at 10:57 pm
TBH
I don’t think it matters for export production if Sth Africa is right or left hand drive.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 11:01 pm
Back in ye olde days it probably did, JC, when the conversion would have cost a quid or two outside of Europe.
tbh
17 Feb 13 at 11:09 pm
I believe that is true, although it swaps around a lot. But it means nothing. The cars are built by robots on the production line with final assembly by assembly workers. There is no difference in quality or construction technique
The X5s are made in Alabama but X3s are made in Austria.
The LHD/RHD thing means nothing as long as the car was designed as a platform was designed to have either. All the European cars are designed to be LHD/RHD because of the UK/ Ireland market. And they make them all on the same production line, and there is zero difference in cost.
brc
17 Feb 13 at 11:12 pm
There’s a massive VW factory in Tennessee now too. Now that state is a “right to work” state and it undoubtedly brings the cost of production down (in addition to automation). A friend of ours has a new model Passat and I remarked to her that it’s probably more American now than a Ford or GM car (and better). She said it’s a great car too (I own the CC version and love it).
tbh
18 Feb 13 at 12:15 am
More on that plant:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704083904576335501132396440.html
tbh
18 Feb 13 at 12:17 am