German politics. Flinten-Uschi defying the laws of gravity

[Karneol]

I think the FDP " spricht mir aus dem Herzen"

https://m.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/kritik-an-akk-nach-ernennung-zur-verteidigungsministerin-16288708.html

But she is just another unqualified member of our goverment -sadly to get a job in the goverment you only need the right connections rather than skills.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Somehow when I hear the FDP utter that, I have to isntantly think of Niebel.

Once in goverment, he became head of a department he wanted to abolish on the campaign trail, and he even staffed it up with his party colleague who were totally unqualified for the position.

Keine Ahnung vom Metier, sind dafür in der FDP.

But I kinda admire his career path. From the minister/secretary for international development, to lobbyist for the arms manufacturer of Rheinmetal. Full circle if you will. From helping to build up infrastructures in the thrid world to bombing them again. Circle of life.

 

[Mindwalker]

7 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

One would hope so. But then again, I also assumed I would never ever be bothered by Friedrich fucking Merz again (which would've been Merkel's true accomplishment).

 

Yeah, I'm still waiting for Guttenberg to raise his pretty head again.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So Granaten Gretel (thank you Carolin Kebekus ) has been sworn in during the summer recess. And her first measure was to suck up to Donnie Dipshit and demand more money for her ministry. Which had already seen a heavy increase of its funding, and which should deal probably deal with other issues like the ongoing consultant scandal first. I mean I get it. More money, means more consultants, means more money, means more consultants.

[Alarich II]

On 7/25/2019 at 9:44 PM, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So Granaten Gretel (thank you Carolin Kebekus ) has been sworn in during the summer recess. And her first measure was to suck up to Donnie Dipshit and demand more money for her ministry. Which had already seen a heavy increase of its funding, and which should deal probably deal with other issues like the ongoing consultant scandal first. I mean I get it. More money, means more consultants, means more money, means more consultants.

Well, this is just keeping promises made, way before Trump was even thinkable as POTUS, so in principle I think it's okay to spend more on defence than we currently do. Problem is that the money is just siphoned off by "consultants".

[A Horse Named Stranger]

The problem is not hitting agreed targets as such. A gradual increase in defense spending was/is coming anyway, and nobody is questionign that.

The issues are as you mentioned the dark channels where the money vanishes (likesay money for consultants to siphone off). Then the defense has already been increased significantly. So the avilable funds are by itself not the problem. The ministry should figure out how to spend their new found riches in a sensible way first, before asking to throw good money after bad money.

[Karneol]

https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/kandidaten-spd-vorsitz-101.html

To my suprise there are still persons who willingly (?) want to be SPD-Vorstand

Also there are elections in 4 weeks in Sachsen and Brandenburg, on the 27th of October in Thüringen. 

https://app.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/umfrage-afd-vor-landtagswahlen-staerkste-partei-in-ostdeutschland/24868890.html?ticket=ST-2490536-7Kt4J4KoJC3oK36X3eQM-ap3

Obviously the AFD will be the biggest winner in the east. 

The CDU will have to ask themselves a major question- do they want a coalition with the AFD?

Will the Green Wave be? Espacially Sachsen where are lot of jobs are depending on coal their climate plans are very unpopular- and I have not mentioned their views on refugees yet.

[Toth]

34 minutes ago, Karneol said:

Will the Green Wave be? Espacially Sachsen where are lot of jobs are depending on coal their climate plans are very unpopular- and I have not mentioned their views on refugees.

Brandenburgian here. My mother recently walked past an advertising booth of the Greens and watched them getting verbally attacked by some residents. And just today I walked through the streets and saw some lunatic run around yelling "The Greens are mass murderers! Wake up, you sheep!" over and over again at random people passing him by.

I must admit, ever since the European Elections those kind of nutjobs have turned quite a lot more nuttier. And more terrified. We'll see how this will turn out. Of course I have also seen the local Greens very present during Fridays for Future strikes.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I thought Granaten Gretel has ruled that out categorically. As in no cooperation with the far right, and she has reiterated that statement after the death of Lübcke.

And assuming Söder has not fallen prey to a Green body snatcher, his latest turns hint more towards them finally abandoning that crazy strategy of trying to outflank the new Nazi party on the right. Instead he is trying to turn his far right CSU back to sanity (can you return it to something where it's never been before?) and the center (same question), and stop the bleeding to the Greens. I mean he is proposing a green policy now almost on a weekly basis. Give it a few more months and he will send the Bavarian police forces down to protect Castor protestors.  So their internal polling seems to suggest, that they are now more threatened by the Greens than by the Neo Nazi party to their right.

Ofc the three upcoming elections, are definately not on Green hometurf. So there the conservatives might still feel more comfortable cosing up the Nazis, which might be electorally more prudent for them there. Either way just fuck Sachsen. What I wanted to say is, it might give them votes there (did I already say fuck Sachsen?), but it will cost them in the old Republic. They would get beaten with that collaborateur stick  throughout the country during the next election cycles.

[Karneol]

2 hours ago, Toth said:

Brandenburgian here. My mother recently walked past an advertising booth of the Greens and watched them getting verbally attacked by some residents. And just today I walked through the streets and saw some lunatic run around yelling "The Greens are mass murderers! Wake up, you sheep!" over and over again at random people passing him by.

Does somebody know the Johannitage in Triesdorf? It's a convention for everything related to agriculture. As someone who visits it quiete often I would like to challange the Greens to open their own little stall there. It would be very entertaining

[Toth]

On 8/5/2019 at 10:20 PM, Karneol said:

Does somebody know the Johannitage in Triesdorf? It's a convention for everything related to agriculture. As someone who visits it quiete often I would like to challange the Greens to open their own little stall there. It would be very entertaining

Never heard of it. And... are farmers really that hostile to environmental policy? Thing is, having grown up in a tiny shit-hole village I have watched the farmers around it go bankrupt one after another because they were struck by heatwave after heatwave and all their crops died until everything they still dared to have on their field was grass. Both Global Warming and land degradation are threatening their livelihoods and can only be fought by massively rethinking the way we do agriculture. Then again, I admit that I see how such drastic change can be perceived as a thread and makes them vulnerable to fear-mongering by those who drone on and on and on about the Greens being the political antichrist.

Amusingly, just last week I passed a booth of the AfD set up at the train station when returning from work. They placed themselves directly next to the regular booth of the Jehova's Witnesses, which looked just utterly hilarious. And I guess they were shooting themselves into the foot with it, given how people walked in huge arcs to avoid at least one of them.

[Loge]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

Never heard of it. And... are farmers really that hostile to environmental policy?

It's the other way round. Farmers are used to being painted the bogey man by environmentalists, animal rights activists etc., so they're wary of them.

[Toth]

11 minutes ago, Loge said:

It's the other way round. Farmers are used to being painted the bogey man by environmentalists, animal rights activists etc., so they're wary of them.

Ah! Okay, I can see that. Though I must say my impression was always more like the "enemy" is the supermarkets and food companies and their price policies that put such high pressure on farmers that sustainable agriculture had become a liability for many and literally forces them to ruin their soil and exploit their animals to squeeze out enough money to survive.

That's actually a point I thought I would like to bring up at that AfD booth one of these days and watch them gasp for air when denied their beloved refugee crisis that had always been their only talking point. Then again, I don't want to look myself like the angry lunatic trying to make a scene in front of the train station.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

12 hours ago, Toth said:

Ah! Okay, I can see that. Though I must say my impression was always more like the "enemy" is the supermarkets and food companies and their price policies that put such high pressure on farmers that sustainable agriculture had become a liability for many and literally forces them to ruin their soil and exploit their animals to squeeze out enough money to survive.

You can have more than one enemy.

Like I said, I have relatives you run a farm. So I can confirm, that they don't particularly like the Greens. You have to see it this way. There are two kinds of farms in Germany. The vast majority do the conventional farming (as we call it). Which is basically a euphemism for farming industry. They're firmly represented by the farmer's union (Bauernverband (the biggest one) or Landvolk) and the CDU/CSU politically (again my relatives fall into that category). They are politically extremely powerful, not just in Germany, but also in the European Parliament (just check how the Nitrat levels were decided there). For them it's size, size, size. Three years ago or so their melkkarussel (google or youtube it, if you want to know what it is) had technical problems and they had to do the milking by hand for a few days. Let's just say milking some hundred cows by hand was not as romantic as it sounds. To avoid misunderstandings, they are running a convetional farm, but are still treating their animals relatively well, and have not been involved in one of those animal mistreatment scandals. And afterall there are still European standards they have to meet in order to get their juicy European subsidies. Unlike fowel farms, which are by all accounts just horrible. The (junior) farmer once visited one of those turkey farms (yes, for the company with the W), and let's just say he doesn't eat any turkey anymore.

The other (much smaller) part of farming are the Bio-Farms. Those are to some degree the romanticised idea of your grandparents farm. They are smaller in size, and are politically more in line with the Greens and all those gay ideas like animal wellfare and sustainability.

[Alarich II]

On 8/11/2019 at 6:16 AM, A Horse Named Stranger said:

You can have more than one enemy.

Like I said, I have relatives you run a farm. So I can confirm, that they don't particularly like the Greens. You have to see it this way. There are two kinds of farms in Germany. The vast majority do the conventional farming (as we call it). Which is basically a euphemism for farming industry. They're firmly represented by the farmer's union (Bauernverband (the biggest one) or Landvolk) and the CDU/CSU politically (again my relatives fall into that category). They are politically extremely powerful, not just in Germany, but also in the European Parliament (just check how the Nitrat levels were decided there). For them it's size, size, size. Three years ago or so their melkkarussel (google or youtube it, if you want to know what it is) had technical problems and they had to do the milking by hand for a few days. Let's just say milking some hundred cows by hand was not as romantic as it sounds. To avoid misunderstandings, they are running a convetional farm, but are still treating their animals relatively well, and have not been involved in one of those animal mistreatment scandals. And afterall there are still European standards they have to meet in order to get their juicy European subsidies. Unlike fowel farms, which are by all accounts just horrible. The (junior) farmer once visited one of those turkey farms (yes, for the company with the W), and let's just say he doesn't eat any turkey anymore. 

The other (much smaller) part of farming are the Bio-Farms. Those are to some degree the romanticised idea of your grandparents farm. They are smaller in size, and are politically more in line with the Greens and all those gay ideas like animal wellfare and sustainability. 

Actually, farm size correlates more with East/West divide than than Bio/Conventional, because the collectivisation in the 50s and 60s has effectively shut down the carreer-path "farmer" for many descendants of farmer-families, so after 1989 when the old ownership-structures vanished, the physical structures remained very much intact.

Take for example herd sizes for dairy farms in Bavaria: the average is 40 cows and most of them practise conventional farming, in Saxony 152 (and that the smallest average of all 5 eastern Länder!). Average German farm-size is 60 ha, smallest average farm-size in eastern Germany is in Saxony (140ha). The resistance against the restrictions on tie-stalls for example was mainly fuelled by the small conventional dairy farms in Bavaria. Whereas the big dairy farms (800 cows and more) practice the more variable and open forms of loose-housing systems that are much more efficient because the fixed costs of the monitoring systems are allocated on a bigger herd. So a small size is not necessarily better for animal welfare. Or sustainability: If you want to implement precision-farming (by installing steering-systems on tractors), your savings in fuel, fertilizer, herbicides etc. are greater if your farm size is greater.

Individual field size and how the reins around it are maintained, hedge rows etc. are more important to biodiversity, protection agains erosion etc. than farm size on the ownership-level.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Alarich II said:

Actually, farm size correlates more with East/West divide than than Bio/Conventional, because the collectivisation in the 50s and 60s has effectively shut down the carreer-path "farmer" for many descendants of farmer-families, so after 1989 when the old ownership-structures vanished, the physical structures remained very much intact.

Take for example herd sizes for dairy farms in Bavaria: the average is 40 cows and most of them practise conventional farming, in Saxony 152 (and that the smallest average of all 5 eastern Länder!). Average German farm-size is 60 ha, smallest average farm-size in eastern Germany is in Saxony (140ha). The resistance against the restrictions on tie-stalls for example was mainly fuelled by the small conventional dairy farms in Bavaria. Whereas the big dairy farms (800 cows and more) practice the more variable and open forms of loose-housing systems that are much more efficient because the fixed costs of the monitoring systems are allocated on a bigger herd. So a small size is not necessarily better for animal welfare. Or sustainability: If you want to implement precision-farming (by installing steering-systems on tractors), your savings in fuel, fertilizer, herbicides etc. are greater if your farm size is greater.

Individual field size and how the reins around it are maintained, hedge rows etc. are more important to biodiversity, protection agains erosion etc. than farm size on the ownership-level.

Nope. My relatives have their farm in lower-saxony. So not in the East. Of course they may not be representative of the overall population of milk farmers in Western Germany. However, the 40 cows average is not true, or at the very least misleading.

Blubb. So two thirds of the cattle live on farms with at least 100 animals. Gotta ask my auntie, but I think they have 2-300 or something in that region. Like I said conventional farming, treating their animals relatively/fairly well as far as I can tell (not a vet or farmer). Anyway, that doesn't change overall argument I put forward, that the conventional farmers are politically firmly alligned with the CDU/CSU. 

Quote

Während die Zahl der Rinderhalter sinkt, steigen die Herdengrößen. Laut BMEL leben über zwei Drittel der Rinder in Betrieben, die mindestens 100 Tiere halten. Das kommt durch die Abschaffung der Milchquote. Denn um am Weltmarkt wettbewerbsfähig zu sein, schaffte die EU-Kommission 2015 die Milchquote ab, die zuvor 30 Jahre lang den Angebotsmarkt regulierte. Agrarökonomen hielten dies für längst überfällig.

Well, anyway. Big agriculture industry and lobbyism. SZ article

[Alarich II]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Nope. My relatives have their farm in lower-saxony. So not in the East. Of course they may not be representative of the overall population of milk farmers in Western Germany. However, the 40 cows average is not true, or at the very least misleading. 

Blubb. So two thirds of the cattle live on farms with at least 100 animals. Gotta ask my auntie, but I think they have 2-300 or something in that region. Like I said conventional farming, treating their animals relatively/fairly well as far as I can tell (not a vet or farmer). Anyway, that doesn't change overall argument I put forward, that the conventional farmers are politically firmly alligned with the CDU/CSU.  

Well, anyway. Big agriculture industry and lobbyism. SZ article

Before you throw out baseless accusations, I suggest you go here for stats on dairy farming and here for statistics on farm sizes, output etc. I specifically said herd size in Bavaria . Average herd size in 2018 in Lower Saxony was 91 animals. Your relatives in Lower Saxony btw. are in a region where herd size has more than doubled since 1999, i.e. a region with fast consolidation.

The percentage of "eco-farms" in any given size-bracket never exceeds about 8%, the prediction on wether a farm is big or small is more likely to be accurate if it's made on geography. And the ecological impact of farming is not so much determined by how big a farm is, but how the land is farmed.

The close alignment with conservative policies are not exactly surprising but this is more value-driven than by economic interest. Especially in Southern Germany, where agricultural units are on average still very small, the effects of the agricultural policies are , for the majority of small farmers (and especially the conventional farms), detrimental. The divide between rural and urban regions in terms of mindset probably exlains more than the hard economic interests. My uncle worked for Demeter since the late 1970s and has a smaller eco-farm - and even he would never vote for the Greens. ÖDP at best (in his own words, the independent green flank of the CDU).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Alarich II said:

Before you throw out baseless accusations, I suggest you go here for stats on dairy farming and here for statistics on farm sizes, output etc. I specifically said herd size in Bavaria . Average herd size in 2018 in Lower Saxony was 91 animals. Your relatives in Lower Saxony btw. are in a region where herd size has more than doubled since 1999, i.e. a region with fast consolidation.

 

Possible, and likely given that they have really expanded and picked up land from famers that gave up.

 

1 hour ago, Alarich II said:

 The percentage of "eco-farms" in any given size-bracket never exceeds about 8%, the prediction on wether a farm is big or small is more likely to be accurate if it's made on geography. And the ecological impact of farming is not so much determined by how big a farm is, but how the land is farmed.

 

Geography might very well be a better predictor for farm size. So, I am tentatively willing to cede that point for now, as in too lazy to fact check on that. Furthermore we could go on and check how much the label "eco farms" is worth and what it actually means. That the ecological impact of how a land is farmed (conventional vs eco) is the decissive factor is not something I ever disputed, did I?

1 hour ago, Alarich II said:

 The close alignment with conservative policies are not exactly surprising but this is more value-driven than by economic interest. Especially in Southern Germany, where agricultural units are on average still very small, the effects of the agricultural policies are , for the majority of small farmers (and especially the conventional farms), detrimental. The divide between rural and urban regions in terms of mindset probably exlains more than the hard economic interests. My uncle worked for Demeter since the late 1970s and has a smaller eco-farm - and even he would never vote for the Greens. ÖDP at best (in his own words, the independent green flank of the CDU).

Possible, however the conservative parties also happen to represent the coventional farmers' economically. Bavaria might be the exception, as in you said, you are behind in terms of market consolidation. As for the second bit. I will reverse the argument, the farmers that vote Green are very likely Eco farmers, not conventional ones. This way the argument sounds more like what I meant. 

 

Can you now point me to the baseless accusation bit. Not 100% what your issue is.

[Alarich II]

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Can you now point me to the baseless accusation bit. Not 100% what your issue is.

You said in reply to my post this

Quote

However, the 40 cows average is not true, or at the very least misleading.

Which pissed me off, because:

a) the figure is true

and

b) it's not misleading either, I very clearly stated that this is a figure for Bavaria. I put this in contrast to Saxony and the comparison is apt, because in the context of this discussion, both are very conservative and also both stand for the smallest average of their peer group (East / West).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

27 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

b) it's not misleading either, I very clearly stated that this is a figure for Bavaria. I put this in contrast to Saxony and the comparison is apt, because in the context of this discussion, both are very conservative and also both stand for the smallest average of their peer group (East / West).

Sorry for misreading your post. To me it read on a brief first glimpse like you turned Bavaria with its 40 cow average into a representation of farming size in (Western Germany). We can safely agree that's not the case.

However, you still should have written a few more sentences with regards to Eco farming, farm sizes and states.

The overall share of Bio or Eco farms in Germany was 12% in 2018. The number is on the rise, but it's still just half of the 20% aspiration. We can leave out the not very concrete definition of what makes a farm Eco. The actual land farmed ecologically was around 9%. So that's a small indication, that Eco farms tend to be somewhat smaller than conventional farms. I thought the difference would be more pronounced. Now, I make the qualification to that statement, you could've with your farm size and region claim.

The 12% of Eco farms is however unevenly divided geographically among the different states. Bavaria is with it's 11% pretty much on point. And there the share of ecological used farmland is also at 11%. Might be correlated with the smaller farms you mentioned. Saxony in contrast has 12% (similar to Bavaria) eco farms, they occupy just 6% of its farmland. So basically half. That's a pretty consistent theme in the East, with the exception of Brandenburg.

The outliers with regards to the share of the eco farmland and eco farms are the Saarland (16.5% (eco farmland) and 22% (eco farms) ) and Rhineland-Palatinate (10.5% and 9.4%), I suspect that might have something to do with those regions being wine producers and people actually caring more and willing to pay more for quality. But that's just a gut feeeling.

Stats and Shizzle