Chris Reiter 📯

Germany can turn itself around if it really understands its issues. We lay it out in our new book "Totally Kaputt?" (out now in German): amzn.eu/d/hy05nza Here's the first review 👇 swr.de/swrkultur/lite…

@derJamesJackson This is exactly why I wrote about Germany’s fragile identity. So much misplaced angst. #shamelessselfpromotion 👇

Germany's antisemitism commissioner criticised Habitat festival in Hamburg for inviting Palestinian DJ Sama' Abdulhadi, who he said had a "highly polarizing, anti-Semitic worldview"

📚It's publication day to all of these amazing books! Which book has caught your eye? 👀 Thread 👇

There she is. The paperback version of Broken Republik 🤓👇

PERSONAL NEWS. The paperback version of my book Broken Republik is coming out soon. The decline of the posterchild of the postwar order is now more relevant than ever as that system collapses around us. Contains a new Afterword! goodreads.com/book/show/2222…

44% of evening peak met by batteries. In California, world’s 4th largest economy. Not some tiny pilot project or a niche experiment, a global industrial powerhouse If you’re still sitting in boardrooms or parliament banging on about baseload and the intermittency of renewables, you’re not just wrong, you’re a dinosaur California's 44% isn't an anomaly. It's a preview of the 2027-2030 reality for every major grid overbuilding renewables The "technical barriers" the fossil fuel lobby loves to cry about are gone. We are shifting solar and wind into the night at a massive, industrial scale. We don't need expensive, inflexible coal or gas to keep the lights on; we need more storage and we need it now - everywhere reneweconomy.com.au/grid-batteries…

@hoyer_kat Just a few days until the paperback version of our book Broken Republik comes out. It's current Germany on the edge of catastrophe. 🫣 Broken Republik: The Inside Story of Germany’s Descent into Crisis by Chris Reiter | Goodreads share.google/stuykGKxMOM9gk…

19 days to WEIMAR: LIFE ON THE EDGE OF CATASTROPHE. It tells the interwar story through the town of Weimar. Meet the people of WEIMAR in my daily countdown👇 #19 Hotelier Rosa Schmidt. Hitler often stayed at her hotel. He'd no idea she was Jewish. She'd no idea what was coming.

@GermanEmbassy That's also fuel saved. So in that case, why doesn't Germany also include making the Deutschland-ticket cheaper in its response to the energy crisis? Instead, it makes driving cheaper...when there's a supply crunch in the making. So its jolting demand. Make it make sense.

The Deutschland-Ticket, providing unlimited regional public transport for €63/month, is used by around 15m people in 🇩🇪. According to a recent report, 12-20% of the journeys made with it, would have been made by car, which saved 2.5m tonnes of CO₂ per year. #GermanClimateAction

Merz is struggling to balance a party base aligned with his economy minister’s brand of business-friendly conservatism with the demands of his left-leaning coalition partner bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Statista link here: de.statista.com/infografik/263…

Poverty remains a crime in Germany. If you can't afford a valid bus or train ticket, you certainly can't afford the punitive fine (~€60). That can land you in jail. At any point in time a few thousand people are behind bars in Germany, at a cost of about €200 a day each.

This poll from FG Wahlen is the fourth major German voter survey showing the far-right AfD in the lead. It's not that they're doing anything clever (with various issues swirling). But there is deep disaffection with Friedrich Merz and his coalition. Combined CDU/SPD report 37%.

@giulio_mattioli What's also odd is that they're saying Tempolimit=Love. "All you need is love" was also a pretty popular song, and so were The Beatles. So not sure they are "owning the Greens" like they think they are.

In most countries, the existing of generalised motorway speed limits is seen as benign and normal, to the point of being absolutely taken for granted. Except in Germany where, if you call for a generalised motorway speed limit, this happens.

@alex_avoigt So maybe there was some sense in the German state bailing out this company after all.

The German shipbuilder Meyer Werft is planning the World’s first Fully Battery-Powered Cruise Ship The battery-powered ship, designed to carry 2,000 passengers, could operate in the Mediterranean, as the charging infrastructure is expected to be in place there by the time of delivery in 2031. According to current plans, the ship would be 275 meters long, have a gross tonnage of 82,000, and could accommodate 1,856 passengers. This would place it in the mid-range in terms of size. The very largest cruise ships can accommodate more than 4,000 passengers. A battery capable of replacing this amount of energy would need a capacity of 500,000 kilowatt-hours. This corresponds to a weight of 2,500 to 3,000 tons. This calculation takes into account that energy from a battery can be utilized much more efficiently than the energy contained in marine diesel fuel. The major advantage of a cruise ship is that this mass can be stowed with relatively little effort. A supplier for the battery has also already been found: Corvus Energy from Norway is set to build the appropriate battery. The company most recently provided the energy storage system for a ferry. Based on current costs for batteries in electric cars, the price is likely to range from 50 to 100 million euros. Everything will be electrified, including cruise ships.

@CatoInstitute @adamnmichel @SantiagoForster "confiscate"? what are you talking about? taxes pay for public services, which keep communities together. that actually works better in the countries you cite (even if there is a lot of room for improvement).

Average American workers pay low taxes compared to those in EU countries, Cato’s @adamnmichel and @SantiagoForster report. Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, and Italy confiscate more than half of their workers’ pretax compensation. An average US worker sends less than a third of their income to the government. ow.ly/Aw1T50YHiqv

Even a majority of German conservatives (52%) disapprove of Friedrich Merz's job as chancellor. He's been in the job for less than a year and the impact of the Iran war are just unfolding in an economy that's increasing its exposure to fossil fuels rather than minimizing them.

The far-right AfD has a four point lead over Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives in the latest German YouGov poll. The impacts from the Iran war are just starting to unfold and that will certainly lead to more anxiety. The ruling parties are under immense pressure.

The FIFA World Cup is a total grift. Everyone's getting their snout in the trough. I had hoped for better from a public transit system.

The far-right AfD is tied for second in Berlin. The center-right CDU leads. The Hauptstadt isn't some lefty island anymore.

@ck_gen It does seem like stagflation is coming. The mood will get darker then.

@chrishreiter Inflation is going to start hitting again plus more corporate layoffs meaning IG Metall et al won’t be able to push for higher pay

80% of voters are unhappy with Friedrich Merz as chancellor. The conservative entered office less than a year ago on a promise to revive growth, backed by a €500 billion infrastructure fund. But average Germans have faced more anxiety rather than less.