Quote from: Tuco Benedicto Pacifico on Today at 12:15:45 PM

Full disclosure upfront: I'm too daft to know how to multi-quote (quoting and responding to different posts in one reply). So I'm trying to address every post relevant to this discussion in one go (hopefully in chronological order), in order to avoid multi-posting.

Simply open every post you want to quote from in a separate tab or window with the quote button. Finally hit "reply" for an empty textbox and start copying from the tabs/windows what you want to quote. Make sure you get the start quote tag copied so that people can click to read the post you are replying too. Also make sure the quote is properly closed with the /quote tag, see example below:

Code:

[quote author=psycodad link=topic=178336.msg60716403#msg60716403 date=1659981557]
What you quote from my original post you are refering to.
[/quote]

What you say.

[quote author=Tuco Benedicto Pacifico link=topic=178336.msg60720657#msg60720657 date=1660047345]
What I quote from you
[/quote]

What I reply.

You can also make the quote refer to a web page, which looks admittedly messy, but very nice and useful for the readers of your post:

Quote from: Quotes with url-address

How to make a quote with an url-address

Code:

[quote="[url=http://www.simplemachines.org/]SMF[/url]"]What is SMF?[/quote]

Hope this helps you or somebody else on quoting.

Quote from: Tuco Benedicto Pacifico on Today at 12:15:45 PM

@psychodad
They are the No. 1 contributor to the EU, and therefore member states, financially.
So if calling the shots means splashing out money to everybody else, you might be right. Other than that...
And the EURO as their trojan horse to transfer wealth into their direction is obviously a genius move, since the Deutschmark had failed so miserably before.
There`s a study out, I think by OECD, comparing median household wealth in the EU. You might want to look it up. From what I remember, German households are among the poorest (as opposed to government finances, which are still relatively godd, althought deteriorating fast).
With things looking like they are right now, you might have a reason to rejoice in the near future. Germany is hanging itself, while simultaneously shooting itself with a shotgun, thanks to its brilliant energy policy - along with several other self-destruction mechanisms..

No more shot-calling, Fritzes`dictatorship ends..yeah.
A bright future for all of the EU, or in fact Europe, lies ahead..

btw: No personal attack intended on you, either. Trying to be realistic, though.

No offense taken, you certainly are right that Germany is the biggest contributor to finances, though that is what I meant a bit with my trojan horse remark. A good example was Greece with the subs they bought from Germany, Germany borrowed them money to buy German submarines. When these famous useless bridges or streets somewhere in Romania, Hungary or wherevers are built with German money so to say, it is more than often a German contractor doing the job.

But I'll give that relative poverty is widespread in Germany, many just work from payday to payday, a lot is relying on social services ('Hartz IV'). Though there are differences. For example in all parts where Germany borders to Switzerland most of them work in Switzerland, they drive up to 100km one way for work. These guys earn maybe a 6-8k salary in CHF, swap it to EUR and get even more at current exchange rates, while at the same time they would get 3-5k EUR in Germany for the same job. But in general I still agree with you, wouldn't want to be a construction worker in Berlin or such.

Also it seems to me they have installed (or disposed in the case of von der Leyen Grin

)) a lot of functionaries into the EU apparatus to make sure their interests come to the table. Still as long as Martin Sonneborn is there, there is some hope Grin

Don't get me wrong, I live very close from Germany (and France) and I have many friends in Germany. I don't want to see Germany to break down because a) those friends, and b) it will take us all down too. But I personally fear that by spring latest, they will be fucked and in a real crisis with riots due to cost of living and lacking support from government (it seems the green party is rather supporting the industry than the poor most affected by gas/energy prices).

And the EUR might as well implode. While the current exchange rates are good for export, they are very bad for import, so the industry is happy, the consumer not so much.
When the Euro was introduced in 92 it was worth 1.80 CHF, right now it is worth 0.97 CHF and I foresee it to go down further, I guess EUR/USD is similarly developing.

I guess we have to prepare for the worst in Europe, still hope for the best and just enjoy the ride.