A global recession is on the horizon - please read OP for mod warning

brickster69

Looks like troops may be on the streets of Germany at some point assisting the police.

https://www.visiontimes.com/2022/08/15/germany-army-patrolling-streets-oct-1.html

EOQRTL

Going to be carnage on the markets Monday morning in Europe, Dax index in particular. Looking at massive drops across the board. Short sellers are going to make a killing.

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568106#Comment_119568106

What does it mean?

I read it and it is a rubbish article. The journalist has no idea for the reason but still tries to make a link with covid mask. Bonus points for mentioning Adolf in it..

Subzero3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568136#Comment_119568136

Just don't mention the R word. It'll all be grand. The salad's you had grown on the window will be ready and the extra jumper will keep you warm. The EU is dead, long live the EU.

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568136#Comment_119568136

Looks like the jobs market will not be looking too clever either this Winter. Behind a paywall but the headline says it all really.

https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1565952055415554048

Ozark707

I am starting to wonder will governments across the board have to step in and pay (very) large parts of the bills. For the SME market I am being told by some owners that they can't afford to pay the increases. They are predicting that there will have to be direct intervention there. Could this happen on the household level?

I am very surprised by the Swedish announcement as I would have thought they had a relative high amount of renewables there so would not have been as affected by other countries far more dependent on fossil fuel imports.

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568206#Comment_119568206

The Swedish thing is caused by the margin calls being dropped on the utility companies who shorted energy. Pay up or you are bust ! They do not have the amounts needed so the governments have to pay up for them. If not the whole energy markets just collapse one after the other.

We have all been led down the path to disaster by a bunch of ****ing flag waving clowns

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568181#Comment_119568181

Basically Germany have changed the law to allow the military to assist the police when they need assistance. It looks like they are helping out with new covid restrictions that are coming. That is it really.

https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/ukraine-und-corona-neues-kommando-der-bundeswehr-uebernimmt-li.254367#:~:text=Nach%20Angaben%20von%20Verteidigungsministerin%20Christine,Landes-%20und%20B%C3%BCndnisverteidigung%20auszurichten

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568298#Comment_119568298

But why does it look like they will help with the new covid restrictions? What make you think that?

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568298#Comment_119568298

There is always heightened security settings in Germany and across Europe for Christmas, as Islamic threat peaks then.

Add in the potential instability with power and social upheaval.

It's got SFA to do with COVID, which is old news now.

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568746#Comment_119568746

Of course they are not needed for the new covid restrictions, but to change the law that the military can assist the police in public spaces when requested, they have to come up with some example. Could you imagine soldiers going around with rifles checking people for covid papers or whatever.

I think it might be the same in France where the domestic use of the army is not permitted in it's constitution. From what i understand it has always been a bit of a taboo subject in Germany given it's history, anyway it is permitted now in law.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568853#Comment_119568853

Germany spent too long flagellating itself over WW2.

It became narcissistic and self indulgent about it. Germany is a strange country. It's a global economic power but it is like it's the 90s in many ways, faxes. Crap internet etc

Good point about the Why of soldiers on the street

bb12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568853#Comment_119568853

very disturbing news. countries starting to use their military against their own citizens.

i would guess they're putting these measures in place to try and quell lack of food and heat riots by the citizens that seem inevitable at this stage

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568908#Comment_119568908

Where did you see they were going to use the army against their own citizens?

Widdensushi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568908#Comment_119568908

That escalated quickly, how is it inevitable?

Tonesjones

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-fear-hard-winter-surging-crime-civil-unrest-cg56xmrkz

Uk police report preparing for a winter of chaos and misery.

Also 1.7 million brits preparing to ignore their electricity bills when latest increases come in next month.

lmimmfn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119568908#Comment_119568908

That would be my guess also, preparing for civil unrest.

greenfield21

Honestly I haven't seen any decent analysis on Europe gas supply/demand on here other than twitter nonsense

Bit it does seem a mild winter in Europe along with reduced consumption in Asia, including rising interest rates means doomsday is not a given 🤣🤣.

Tonesjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119569151#Comment_119569151

Gene Kerrigan writes…. “A 47pc pay rise for the man who puts up energy prices. 

Looks like we’re heading into a tough winter — and I’m not referring to the weather. The cold, the rain and the snow we can deal with, but runaway price rises, inflation and the greed of those who already have more than enough are going to do the damage.

For some, the winter may mean they can’t afford all they depend on to keep their children warm, to feed them and to fend off the darkness.

This is the reality of a cost-of-living crisis. People who, no matter how hard they work, will not be paid enough to get by.

Last week, Vincent de Paul reported getting 30 calls an hour, many from people stretched beyond the limit by the cost of sending their children back to school.

There’s an old Irish tradition. It’s called depriving essential public services of the resources they require to function properly.

In schools, that means hitting parents with demands for “voluntary contributions” to pay for the heat or the light or some other essential.

This creates tensions to do with fear, embarrassment and pressure — the teachers don’t like it and too many parents can’t afford it.

In hospitals, that old Irish tradition means providing fewer beds than we need and requiring medics to work dangerously long hours.

Here’s the beginning of a recent Sindo story by Hugh O’Connell: “The HSE cannot say how many of its staff are working shifts of more than 24 hours in breach of EU law.”

Note — we’ve fallen so far that the story lead isn’t about the fact that medics are working absurdly long shifts. We take that for granted now. The story is that the HSE itself doesn’t know how many of its workers are forced into this dangerous practice in order to keep the hospitals going.

And now, welcome the winter of 2022.

Price increases are coming at us like a train. Prices that used to be measured in hundreds are now being quoted in thousands.

In the Indo last week, a cafe owner from Athlone told her story. Her electricity cost €12,7000 last year. She wasn’t complaining about that, it’s the cost of doing business.

But a new electricity bill had arrived, a bill for 10 grand — for two months.

She reckons the total annual cost of electricity for her business will shoot up from €12,700 to €45,000. Plus Vat.

All the usual calculations we make about budgeting for the expected afflictions of winter won’t apply this year. The breaking-news app on my phone is working overtime, and when it beeps it’s never a signal of good tidings.

Beep… electricity up 34pc, on average. And gas up 39pc.

Beep follows beep, one supplier follows another, all with jaw-dropping price increases.

When price rises are this heavy, even those of us with work and a reasonable income are going to feel it. A lot of people who work hard in really useful jobs, on wages not nearly good enough, will be floored by the increases.

I’m referring to those people we all felt grateful to when the pandemic hit. People on checkouts, people cleaning hospitals, people delivering goods, keeping the food chain in place — you know who I mean: the people we suddenly realised are the ones who keep this country going.

As opposed to the highly paid, long-lunch lads in the cool suits who are largely there for decoration.

During the pandemic, we realised how the workers in the factories and the shops, the medics and the transport workers aren’t paid nearly enough.

And then the vaccines came along and the dangers eased and we suddenly didn’t care all that much about the heroes and the wages and conditions they put up with.

This winter will be tough on all of us. But the people who are barely getting by may end up having to make choices no one should ever have to make. Some will have to ask themselves: Which is most important tonight — heat, light or food?

And paying the energy companies is just one part of what will make this winter memorable — the companies promise to raise the prices, but they can’t promise we won’t have blackouts.

One of the energy companies pushing up its prices is SSE Airtricity — a 35pc price jump for electricity, and a 39pc increase for gas.

Why is this happening?

Well, it says costs, and, y’know, “market volatility”. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I’m sure it’s very profound.

Here’s a sentence from a Charlie Weston story in the Indo: “The price hikes come on the back of SSE Airtricity Ireland paying its UK parent company a €115m dividend last year.”

Oh, good, the shareholders are doing well.

And guess how much the CEO of SSE Airtricity gets these days? 

Now, you might imagine this chap could survive even a tough winter on €4m or €3m or even €1m or half-a-million — or a measly €200,000.

Don’t be ridiculous. Mr Bigbucks got a 47pc pay rise, so he’s on €5.3m.

Meanwhile, a government minister is caught belatedly registering his ownership of a house. And because we’re getting used to this kind of thing, we file it under light relief.

Three years in a row, Stephen Donnelly forgot to remember how many houses he owns.

Stephen is the second minister we’ve recently discovered to be hopelessly inept in the matter of counting his houses — and every bit as inadequate at filling in official forms.

Mind you, it must be a bit of a handicap in the ministering business, being so bad at counting. Being health minister in Ireland involves a lot of counting.

For instance, in July of this year there were 9,191 patients on trolleys — almost 10,000 people deprived of a hospital bed.

That’s a 52pc increase on the trolley figures from July last year.

Things are bad even before the tough winter arrives.

In March 2006, then-health minister Mary Harney declared a “national emergency” because of the trolley culture.

Sixteen years later, the emergency hasn’t ended — the figures just get worse.

Already this year, we’ve had eight months of continuous overcrowding in emergency departments.

Declaring an emergency means nothing unless you arrange to put emergency measures into play. And there’s no danger of that happening. So, declaring an emergency has zero effect, except that it gives voters the impression you’re doing something.

Back in 2007, a year into the national emergency, Enda Kenny was Fine Gael leader and he solemnly promised to end what he called the “scandal of people on trolleys”.

And I could be wrong, but I think Fine Gael made a similar promise before the 2011 general election. And maybe the 2016 election, too.

That’s the great thing — you can promise something, you can even declare a national emergency. And as long as you sound like you’re doing something, people think, yeah, thank God they’re finally taking this problem seriously.

And the game goes on.

Any day now, I expect Mr Varadkar’s scriptwriter to give him a line about how we face “a winter like no other”. And Mr V will put on his solemn face to show that it’s he who cares about us, not those awful Shinners.

And the game goes on.

Some good news to end on.

I know you’re worried about how TDs will get through a tough winter on a mere €101,000 wage. Fear not, the public service increase currently being arranged will give them a €6,500 boost.

So, they’ll then be on €107,500, God bless them.

bb12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119569164#Comment_119569164

excellent post.

however i also feel some cupability has to lie with the citizens of the country who seem happy enough to let this happen and not demand full accountability and heads on the table when needed

brickster69

Sweden's government stumps up 23 billion to stop electric producers going bankrupt on Monday. Nasty things those margin calls lads when the phone rings.

https://www.visaolonginqua.com/business/financial-market-and-investments/sweden-to-offer-23-billion-in-liquidity-guarantees-to-energy-firms-by-reuters/

Sounds bad

https://www.tvcnews.tv/2022/09/sweden-to-provide-liquidity-guarantee-for-energy-companies/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

dollylama

I've seen a lot of mention now of energy companies being caught in short positions, margin calls, etc

I don't have much understanding of the electricity market so is this a requirement of doing business as an electricity provider.. do they hedge for the next year, do they guarantee a sell price to smaller suppliers or large users.. or is it a case they were speculating and gambling outside of their usual business to make a buck? If the latter, let them drown I say

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119569915#Comment_119569915

It is impossible to know how much of a mess we are talking about here. All i know is who is going to end up picking the bill up for it all.

brickster69

Finland stumps up 10 billion. A very expensive Sunday

https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1566471702489534467

brickster69

Looks like the EU is discussing the possible suspension of power derivatives trading 🤦‍♂️ and other crisis measures.

It's all going to quickly spread to the banks shortly already whispers going around of a big one in serious **** now.

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/441703/eu-to-discuss-gas-price-caps-derivatives-halt-amid-crisis/?utm_source=contentstudio.io&utm_medium=referral

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/09/03/eu-trade-supply

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107293#Comment_119107293

It's the energy supply. That underpins everything else.

It's the energy crisis and the scrapping of "austerity".

Basically "austerity" as defined by the likes of Richard Boyd Barrett really meant prudent financial management. That went out the window several years ago with governments lashing money. And did the poorest in society actually see any of it? Doubtful. A neighbor was an adult education volunteer and got qualified for a job doing it. Budget was cut and she ended up working in retail instead. And this was after "austerity" was lifted.

Do people really think this is better than "austerity"?

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119572756#Comment_119572756

Deutsche Bank, hateful shower anyway

Eclectic Econometrics

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119572809#Comment_119572809

Have you read any articles on this that you can link to? Is it confirmed as Deutsche Bank? Thanks in advance.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119572918#Comment_119572918

Was on a call with a guy from EEX regarding voluntary carbon markets, he said that things are absolutely mental in the derivatives market, we got taking about Sweden and Finland then he said Germany will have to put 100 billion to keep all afloat and Deutsche under pressure.