SZwanglos – Following Feed

RT by @thinkBTO: This episode with Raffelhüschen was/is one of @thinkBTO's best and most sobering, unfortunately...

Typically, reform is equated with cuts. Of course, the idea of ​​questioning whether we have one of the most expensive health systems in the world with below-average results doesn't come to mind.

500 billion euros were supposed to flow into the modernization of the country - but billions were reallocated. Economists like @Lars_Feld warn of a dangerous development. https://www.handelsblatt.com/100210071.html?utm_medium=sh&utm_campaign=sharing&utm_source=Twitter&utm_term=web

RT by @thinkBTO: @thinkBTO in conversation with @Lars_Feld "...why turning away from the previously rather restrained German debt policy proves to be a dangerous mistake..." https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/bto-der-%C3%B6konomie-podcast-von-dr-daniel-stelter/id1561142763?i=1000756548507

RT von @thinkBTO: Welcher „Neoliberalismus im 90er-Jahre-Stil“ Bitteschön? 😩

RT by @thinkBTO: I agree with you that the costs of maintaining and operating the backup must of course be fully included in the system comparison between renewable energy and nuclear power plants. In the nuclear model, the capacity and amount of energy of sensible gas power plants (H2 or NG) would be lower, and the nuclear power plants would run more cost-effectively. Your view would also be economically appropriate if you started from scratch "on a greenfield site" (e.g. re-electrification of Cuba). But that is not the case in Europe.

RT by @thinkBTO: First of all, let's get to the facts: Spain's electricity energy mix: 20 percent each are generated by nuclear power, wind power and solar. The rest with hydropower and natural gas. The annual full load hours of photovoltaics are 2,000 in Spain and a maximum of 900 in Germany. With the unbridled expansion of renewables, Spain is increasingly endangering security of supply, as happened with the blackout in 2025. I appreciate Anja Kohl as a stock market expert, but unfortunately she has no idea about the energy industry! Why doesn't the press club invite energy experts? Of course you prefer to move around in the ÖRR echo chamber! https://www.cicero.de/wirtschaft/stromausfall-in-spanien-konventionelle-krafte-sind-fur-stabilitat-eines-netzes-entscheidend

RT by @thinkBTO: Compensation of employees relative to GDP peaked in 2025. The wage share (relative to national income) was not that high even in the 1970s. What reduces employee compensation per capita is the reduced working hours per capita.

RT by @thinkBTO: The divergence between GDP per capita and GDP per worker has to do with the fact that many more people have come into work but are working fewer hours. But I wouldn't see that as a distribution problem. If you work full-time, this should be more of the same./1

RT by @thinkBTO: In the @ARD #press club, our #ÖRR are once again spreading hate & ideology-driven political fairy tales. Anja Kohl, for example, fails to mention that Spain has seven nuclear power plants and would never dream of shutting them down. These nuclear power plants not only guarantee clean electricity, also secure electricity around the clock and also cheap electricity. Anja Kohl is lying flat out when she says that the “corporations” no longer want nuclear power. The corporations never said that. And when Anja Kohl is confronted, she reframes the round and steals away. This is anti-discourse that Kohl is pursuing. Because concealing and denying the facts only helps Anja Kohl to secure her salary. She hits us all in the pan. We all have to pay hundreds of billions for NOTHING. #Climate #Environment #Discourse #Nuclearpower

RT by @thinkBTO: It's interesting that the German media always asks so-called experts about nuclear energy who are proven opponents of nuclear energy. The Frauenhofer Institute is the ally of renewables, what else could you expect from an employee other than rejection of SMR technology. Worldwide, Germany is a wrong-way driver when it comes to nuclear energy and that is reality.

RT by @thinkBTO: @thinkBTO is clearing up all the green populist fairy tales about fracking👇🏻 https://www.handelsblatt.com/audio/bto/beyond-the-obvious-endlich-deutsches-gas-foerdern/100205324.html

@JohnHCochrane explains it simply: any kind of price cap or subsidy increases the likelihood that the energy price shock will result in general inflation. https://open.substack.com/pub/johnhcochrane/p/how-to-turn-a-price-shock-into-inflation?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

True. not on the other hand. It would be helpful if we hadn't willfully weakened our own economy without necessity. The lower the altitude, the higher the risk of crashing.

That's what people thought when there was a war in Ukraine and nuclear power plants were blown up. We'll probably blow up gas power plants now - problem solved 🙈 - seriously: anyone who doesn't decide on a moratorium on the demolition of nuclear power plants today, the rapid rehabilitation and the production of domestic gas, wants the crash.

RT by @thinkBTO: We don't have liberal parties. We have the really big cartel of statists.

As a reminder (particularly necessary in Germany): economic growth is energy consumed. If you forego energy, you don't get any growth.

👇 By the way, I personally delivered it to the Chancellery. Now that Merz and Klingbeil are supposedly planning major reforms, they should take a look. However, this is not about tax increases...

RT by @thinkBTO: Agree. We see again and again that economists who are too close to power have to defend it, regardless of whether their economic reputation suffers or not.

R to @ChrisStoecker: And now we are entering the critical phase: deindustrialization is obvious, demographic change is turning the hidden debts into real ones and the politics of consumption instead of investment and ideological dreaming are taking their bitter revenge. For this reason:

R to @ChrisStoecker: But I don't just criticize, I also make concrete suggestions for action: Problem: of course you have to do away with some fairy tales, including those that Stöcker regularly spreads....

R to @thinkBTO: - Social security: not sustainable. - Infrastructure: dilapidated. - Bundeswehr: not fit for military service. - Migration: loss-making business. - Energy policy: deindustrialization. - Education system: mass instead of class - Private assets: bottom In contrast to @ChrisStoecker, I allow replies and can easily test the quality of the statements.

I'm blocked by @ChrisStoecker, so I'm happy to do so (and unlike him, I tag him). Recommend him to read "The Tale of the Rich Country" - yes, I was wrong. I was still too optimistic! In every respect, Germany has developed even worse. The disinformation about important economic matters in this gentleman's weekly column is largely to blame for this.

R to @thinkBTO: For everyone who wants to test the “being wrong” thesis: here are the forecasts from 2018:

RT by @thinkBTO: P.S. Great, dear @thinkBTO, that you wrote down your argument against this unspeakable study so quickly 👏 https://x.com/Axel_Bojanowski/status/2034656625311539316?s=20

RT by @thinkBTO: Why are the energy transitioners actually defending the EEG with everything they have? Wind and PV don’t send invoices, do they? Here is the answer: Without the EEG compulsory levies and feed-in priority, wind, PV and biomass could not exist profitably on the spot market - their variable costs are low, but the system costs (storage, network expansion, backup) are missing from the price. So the market would prioritize less intermittent sources. Nuclear power as a reliable, low-CO2 alternative has demonstrated this for decades and was therefore included in the base load in the merit order. Graphic AI based on average market prices on the electricity exchange and average feed-in tariff

RT by @thinkBTO: "But the perfidious thing about the study is actually: Why should they only run at 25 or 30 percent in this scenario? Because supposedly the wind is always blowing and the sun is shining. That means: The problems of renewable energies - their unavailability - are not attributed to renewables, but to nuclear power. And then of course it comes out: nuclear power is expensive. And this mantra is repeated constantly."

RT by @thinkBTO: Aunt Kemfert's new "book": Energy shortages and volatility of renewables supposedly do not increase the blackout risk. It's just the fear of the blackout. And the (scientific) nuclear fear was probably an advantage. If we don't overcome such stupidity, we have no future.

RT von @thinkBTO: Spanien ist kein erneuerbares Paradies, das vor Öl- und Gasvolatilität geschützt ist. Mehr als 76 % des spanischen Energiebedarfs werden durch Importe gedeckt. Darüber hinaus ist Spanien auf russisches LNG angewiesen, um den Spitzenbedarf zu decken.

RT von @thinkBTO: cicero.de/wirtschaft/debatte…

RT by @thinkBTO: Mr. Stelter @thinkBTO has just torn apart this study by the solar lobby about supposedly expensive nuclear power: "There are many studies on the subject of nuclear power, but the famous study that is constantly thrown around your ears is from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. And the costs are extremely high. This is partly because they estimate 9,000 euros per kilowatt of capacity for new nuclear power plants. For comparison: a Finnish prototype reactor, which has been built for 18 years and is also very expensive, only costs around 6,900 euros per kilowatt. That means: That The Fraunhofer Institute is already assuming the worst scenario - and making it even worse. They also set around 10 percent for the capital costs. You have to know: This plays a huge role. If you get one euro in a year and have a 10 percent capital cost, that's 90 cents today. But if you only get the euro in 30 years, it will practically no longer be worth anything. So you assume 10 percent for nuclear power – and 5 percent for wind. But we know that the costs are high at the beginning, but when the power plant is up and running, they are hardly any. This means that the major income will come in the future, the longer the nuclear power plant remains in operation. Added to this is the utilization: the study assumes that nuclear power plants only run at 25 or 30 percent, and in some cases even as low as 23 percent. But the reality is: German nuclear power plants were running at around 95 percent capacity, almost continuously. So if you assume high costs and then say that the system hardly runs, then it is clear that it will be expensive. But the perfidious thing about the study is actually: Why should they only run at 25 or 30 percent in this scenario? Because supposedly the wind is always blowing and the sun is shining. This means that the problems with renewable energies - their unavailability - are not attributed to renewables, but to nuclear power. And then of course it comes out: nuclear power is expensive. And this mantra is repeated constantly. Next point: Do you have to build so expensively? In the past, when we built series, it was much cheaper. Today you have individual items due to massive regulation. Jürgen Trittin once said that regulation must be designed in such a way that nuclear power is expensive. If I design regulation in such a way that it becomes expensive, then it will be expensive. China is showing the way with industrial series construction. The South Koreans are also building nuclear power plants - even in the Emirates, where there is a lot of sun..." Source, the summary of the current MEGA podcast: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/plus69bbde64d225a75f4a234ba3/make-economy-great-again-es-wird-auch-definitiv-eine-aufweichung-der-kreditenbremse-baren.html

RT by @thinkBTO: An extremely clear, understandable and absolutely correct analysis of the failure of German politics over the last 10 years in relation to the economic framework - including the recipe for how it could be done better. 10 out of 10 podcast points!

RT by @thinkBTO: We need a new Fridays for Reform movement. 🤝negative income tax 🤝Energy cost reduction 🤝 Reduce additional wage costs 🤝Radical cure for bureaucracy. 👇 Everyone should definitely listen to this podcast. Everything inside. @federal chancellor @larsklingbeil https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/ronzheimer/id1700432142?i=1000756068691

How Germany is ruining its economy. And how we could do it better. I discussed this with @ronzheimer: https://youtu.be/bHMcSJr8_yo?si=eaT_W0humj_VvFnM via @YouTube

RT by @thinkBTO: A spectacularly important podcast! Awesome. Thanks @ronzheimer Thanks @thinkBTO. @Federal Chancellor

R to @thinkBTO: Conclusion: The Ifo criticism is not a smokescreen. SVR, IW and BMF's own figures show: additionality below 50%, core budget falls, debt ratio increases to over 85% of GDP by 2035 (SVR). The SVIK CAN be good – but only with an honest balance sheet and real controls.

R to @thinkBTO: P.S.: and I only now saw that our discussion was being picked up by the media. Guess we should welcome it. It's a really important topic. Kind regards DSt

R to @thinkBTO: Your core number: 172 billion MORE than the traffic light. Which BMF paper? Didn't find the number. The independent SVR only has 63.9 billion in additional investments and 173.1 billion more in debt. That's a ratio of 37% additionality. 8/9

R to @thinkBTO: CONSENSUS on your last point: speed up planning and approval processes, ensure that money flows into good projects. Absolutely. But this requires monitoring, which the SVR requires - and which is missing so far.9/10

R to @thinkBTO: The SVR also criticizes: The 10% quota is artificially increased - too broad an investment definition, inconsistent treatment of defense spending. If the calculation were correct, the rate would be even lower. And: No catch-up rule if the actual is missed. 5/6