• sizzler@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No, Germany’s government colluded with the manufacturers to charge them less tax to purposefully give them an advantage. By about £5k. You’re not providing sources for your claims so I don’t feel obliged to.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Well that’d be direct state aid which EU rules forbid on the internal market so… I guess you should’ve joined earlier. Or had an actual trade policy. Something like that, instead of bemoaning the evil Teutons harassing the poor, poor British Empire with its utter lack of sovereignty. I know it’s a popular narrative but it hasn’t been true since WWII. Modulo football of course. We’d love to not bully you there, see you take second place instead of the Brazilians, but, alas, you know.

      Also, I don’t believe that number for a second. Why? Because a VW Golf cost £2099 in 1976, in today’s pounds (which I assume that your £5k are) that’s as per Bank of England £13,448.89. That’s so off scale for a subsidy it’s not even funny, and it would also mean that all those other countries there subsidised their cars as VWs aren’t cheaper than the Fords and Citroens and whatnot. The Golf is in fact right in between two not entirely incomparable Vauxhalls. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, yours is one, mine aren’t.

      I heavily suspect that you read an article wrong somewhere. “(some) UK car manufacturers needed to sell at a loss (and in some cases that might’ve been £5k) because they didn’t manage to introduce automation” sounds more like it.

      And it was the Japanese who kicked that off, btw, the German car industry had to react to it to stay competitive just as the rest of the world.

      • sizzler@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m talking after the UK was in the EU but after that first waffley paragraph of bollocks I think I’ll stop talking to you now.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          What about “The EU forbids direct state aid” was waffley bollocks? Why didn’t the UK have Berlaymont nuke Germany’s practice from orbit?

          Or are we at a cultural impasse, here, I know that at least Americans often don’t understand the practice of what we call, over here, when speaking English, taking the piss.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              It is impossible for that to have been sarcasm, of course, as I am German and therefore do not partake in such frivolities. It all makes perfect sense now. Toodeloo.