Posted on 02/23/2012 7:09:16 AM PST by AFPhys
Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark.
The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers – even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germany’s most populous state.
"Price increases of around 15 percent for electricity and gas in the past two years have made energy for many households unaffordable", said CEO Klaus Mueller. The increasing fuel poverty is alarming. What is more, ever tighter household budgets and regularly lacking competence in keeping personal finances in check are turning claims arising from unpaid energy bills quickly into an insurmountable cost trap.
Three-quarters of the 58 companies that responded to questions from the NRW consumer group reported growing problems related to energy debt and power outages. In 2010, the surveyed utilities in North Rhine-Westphalia alone sent out three million reminders for unpaid electricity bill. They issued 340,000 blocking threats and cut off power to 62,000 customers.
According to extrapolations by consumer protection groups, power has been cut off to about 120,000 households in NRW alone and to about 600,000 households nationwide. The estimates of the energy companies are consistent with the experience of the consumer advocates. A spokeswoman from the NRW consumer watch dog added that their consumer advice increasingly focuses on the question of how to comply with payment obligations towards energy suppliers.
They subscribe to an elitist world view where a few decide over the “masses.”
An unprincipled world view, they are willing to sacrifice freedom for some “sense” of security and circumnavigate the Constitution, suspend all Biblical values to this end.
Ultimately, every socialist only believes in his socialism because he thinks that he is either in a position of power, well enough connected to those in power, or savvy enough to game the system to his advantage. Only a few naive and kids believe in some ethical higher purpose in this system, while the vast majority are motivated by greed and envy, fueled by leaders that preach class warfare.
Who will that be?
I’m sure our esteemed leader could advise the Germans on how to handle this. The government just needs to declare energy an entitlement and tell the power companies to deliver it for free to those who can’t pay. End of problem.
Population control freaks are the reason why you have to have fewer than 2 kids to hold local government office in India or something like that.
I hear in India you have to have fewer than 2 kids to hold a local government office or something like that.
Hey I have the copy right on that line! :)
This is only the tip of the iceberg the consumers are paying for wind/solar there. Wait until the taxes are hiked again to increase the subsidies.
Never. The energy required to break the chemical bonds betwen oxygen and hydrogen in water greatly exceeds the energy in the freed hydrogen. Hydrogen from water is and always will be a net energy loser.
A new business venture....Zeppelin ranches.
What is the value of a family and marriage in such a society?
What is the value and worth of children in such a society?
At the end of the day, other peoples kids, raised and brainwashed in public institutions, will take care of those who decided to have no children and live into the day. Socialism tears out the foundation of any society, the family and children. But this is a long term consequence.
In the little town I grew up in, Walldorf Germany we have three swinger clubs. There older people, mostly childless or at most with one can get their hedonistic pleasure. Who wants kids? They cost money, time, impede one’s career, commit one to another person, and social as well as sex life!
***If this is going on in the “strong” “green” economy,***
So they need to go back to burning wood! Wonder how long the Black Forest will hold out if all of them start using axes and woodcutters to provide fuel and lights.
They now buy gas from the Russians and have become “dependent” on another nation with diverging interests that has proven itself to use energy as leverage when issues arise (Ukraine, Republic Georgia...)
Nuclear is the “way to go” even for us. But it's politically not the expedient decision.
One of the last great freedoms we enjoy is the ability to place whatever we want in the trunk of an automobile and then travel at will, with our stuff, to anywhere we’d like in the Continental United States. Marxist do not like this. They can’t control where we go, when we go, or what we can take. If fuel can be priced so as to make the only travel option a government form of mass transit, THEN they can tell you when you can go, where you can go and more importantly, what you can take. This effectively does away with the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches.
The progressives are city types.
Most don’t go very far across town, much less across country.
I read a month ago or such that Germany has drastically raised their utility rates in the last year or so, and that due to shutting down their nukes, they are going to have to raise it much more.
That is the norm for them, they see socialism as part of who they are (It's part of their cultural identity) at this point when in reality this wasn't something part of them until the mid-late 1800s. Germany was actually home of some of the greatest theological philosophy, home of the reformation, the origin of the first mass produced Bible, it was they that kicked the Muslim's (Visigoths) out of Europe...
They have been taught not to question authority, not really. They will question the typical things such as the Judea Christian value system and God, gender roles, capitalism and free markets, but that is simply all stuff that feeds into the socialist dogma anyhow and isn't “really” critically questioning anything.
Their education system is entirely secular, mandatory and state administered. This system perpetuates the ideology and Germany today is at best a place where people simply culturally identify themselves as Christian but do not practice it nor really believe in any of its tenets.
That’s what I have heard also from several different sources. They have to pay for replacement power and shutdown costs. I used to think the Germans were a very rational group of people, but now it has become very evident they are letting their inner emo take over just like everywhere else in the west.
The family, children and the faith based community is dying even here. This is a bad trend but the government and the bodies of laws that govern our societies abet their decay.
The consequence is what you see in Europe or even here to a slightly lesser degree, a decline in children, a decline in marriage, increased divorce, higher suicide rates, an increase in dysfunction among people since the nanny state CANNOT substitute for the family.
Even in the US we have this issue, simply to a slightly lesser degree. The way our societies have been dealing with it is to simply redefine normal, i.e. homosexuality, infidelity, certain drug use, suicide/euthanasia, family, marriage; the meaning or words such as patriotism, duty, honor, integrity... Our societies have engaged in the game or polemics and secular relativism, redefining what things mean while the world around us goes to $hit, and not because of global warming, lol.
From the look of it at the moment, Christians who aren't in sync with the current ordination of queers, marrying of queers, passing out free condoms, and so on.
The current braying about insurance paying for abortion and contraception means that they're identifying themselves so there's no guesswork involved and they're lining up with what has always been the traditional enemies of the Fascists. So, any or all of the groups that don't go along with the de facto establishment of a state religion would be my guess. Just going after the 1% isn't working for them, so what's your guess?
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